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Date 

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1963. 

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•^Dofefi  bp  ifln  Correp* 


EVERYDAY  BIRDS.  Elementary  Studies. 
With  twelve  colored  Illustrations  repro- 
duced from  Audubon,     Square  i2mo,  $i.oo. 

BIRDS    IN    THE    BUSH.     i6mo,  $1.25. 

A    RAMBLER'S    LEASE.     i6mo,  $1.25. 

THE    FOOT-PATH     WAY.        i6mo,  gilt    top, 

$1.25- 

A   FLORIDA   SKETCH-BOOK.     i6mo,  $1.25. 
SPRING      NOTES      FROM      TENNESSEE. 

i6mo,  $1.25. 
A  WORLD  OF  GREEN  HILLS.     i6mo,  $1.25. 
FOOTING      IT     IN      FRANCONIA.        i6mo, 

^i.io,  net ;  postpaid,  $1.20. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 
Boston  and  New  York. 


FOOTING  IT  IN 
FRANCONIA 

BY 

BRADFORD  TORREY 


"  And  now  each  man  bestride  his  hobby,  and 

dust  away  his  bells  to  what  tune  he  pleases." 

Chakles  Lamb. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1902 


COPYRIGHT,   1901,  BY  BRADFORD  TORREY 
ALL.  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  October^  igoi 


CONTENTS. 


PAOB 

Autumn 2 

Spring ^jg 

A  Day  in  June 120 

Berry-Time  Felicities I47 

Red  Leaf  Days I77 

American  Skylarks I95 

A  Quiet  Morning 208 

In  the  Landaff  Valley 217 

A  Visit  to  Mount  Agassiz 228 


W^\ 
'\(.'\ 


^^A^ 


FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 


AUTUMN 


"  There  did  they  dwell, 
As  happy  spirits  as  were  ever  seen  ; 
If  but  a  bird,  to  keep  them  company, 
Or  butterfly  sate  down,  they  were,  I  ween, 
As  pleased  as  if  the  same  had  been  a  Maiden-queen." 

Wordsworth. 

Five  or  six  hours  of  pleasant  railway 
travel,  up  the  course  of  one  river  valley  after 
another,  —  the  Merrimac,  the  Pemigewasset, 
the  Baker,  the  Connecticut,  and  finally  the 
Ammonoosuc,  —  not  to  forget  the  best  hour 
of  all,  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Winnipisaukee, 
the  spacious  blue  water  now  lying  full  in  the 
sun,  now  half  concealed  by  a  fringe  of 
woods,  with  mountains  and  hills,  Chocorua, 
Paugus,  and  the  rest,  sliifting  their  places 
beyond  it,  appearing  and  disappearing  as 
the  train  follows  the  winding  track,  —  five 


2  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

or  six  Lours  of  this  delightful  panoramic 
journey,  and  we  leave  the  cars  at  Littleton. 
Then  a  few  miles  in  a  carriage  up  a  long, 
steep  hill  through  a  glorious  autumn-scented 
forest,  the  horses  pausing  for  breath  as  one 
water-bar  after  another  is  surmounted,  and 
we  are  at  the  height  of  land,  where  two  or 
three  highland  farmers  have  cleared  some 
rocky  acres,  built  houses  and  painted  them, 
and  planted  gardens  and  orchards.  As  we 
reach  this  happy  clearing  all  the  mountains 
stand  facing  us  on  the  horizon,  and  below, 
between  us  and  Lafayette,  lies  the  valley 
of  Franconia,  toward  which,  again  through 
stretches  of  forest,  we  rapidly  descend.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  way  Gale  River  comes 
dancing  to  meet  us,  babbling  among  its 
boulders,  —  more  boulders  than  water  at 
this  end  of  the  summer  heats,  —  in  its  cheer- 
ful uphill  progress.  Its  uphill  progress,  I 
say,  and  repeat  it;  and  if  any  reader  dis- 
putes the  word,  then  he  has  never  been  there 
and  seen  the  water  for  himself,  or  else  he  is 
an  unfortunate  who  has  lost  his  child's  heart 
(without  which  there  is  no  kingdom  of  heaven 
for  a  man),  and  no  longer  lives  by  faith  in 


AUTUMN  3 

his  own  senses.  On  the  spot  I  have  called 
the  attention  of  many  to  it,  and  they  have 
every  one  agreed  with  me.  Mountain  rivers 
have  attributes  of  their  own  ;  or,  possibly, 
the  mountains  themselves  lay  some  spell 
upon  the  running  water  or  upon  the  behold- 
er's eyesight.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Lafayette 
all  the  while  draws  nearer  and  nearer,  we 
going  one  way  and  Gale  Eiver  the  other,  un- 
til, after  leaving  the  village  houses  behind 
us,  we  alight  almost  at  its  base.  Solemn  and 
magnificent,  it  is  yet  most  companionable, 
standing  thus  in  front  of  one's  door,  the  first 
thing  to  be  looked  at  in  the  morning,  and 
the  last  at  night. 

The  last  thing  to  be  thouglit  of  at  nigbt 
is  the  weather,  —  the  weather  and  what  goes 
with  it  and  depends  upon  it,  the  question  of 
the  next  day's  programme.  In  a  hill  country 
meteorological  prognostications  are  prover- 
bially difficidt ;  but  we  have  learned  to  "  hit 
it  right  "  once  in  a  while ;  and,  right  or 
wrong,  we  never  omit  our  evening  forecast. 
"  It  looks  like  a  fair  day  to-morrow,"  says 
one.  "  Well,"  answers  the  other,  with  no 
thought  of  discourtesy  in  the  use  of  the  sub- 


4  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

junctive  particle,  "  if  it  is,  what  say  you  to 
walking  to  Betlileliem  by  the  way  of  Wal- 
lace Hill,  and  taking  in  Mount  Agassiz  on 
our  return  after  dinner?"  Or  the  prophet 
speaks  more  doubtfully,  and  the  other  says, 
*'  Oh  well,  if  it  is  cloudy  and  threatening, 
we  will  go  the  Landaff  Valley  round,  and 
see  what  birds  are  in  the  larch  swamp.  If 
it  seems  to  have  set  in  for  a  steady  rain, 
we  can  try  the  Butter  Hill  road." 

And  so  it  goes.  In  Franconia  it  must  be 
a  very  bad  half  day  indeed  when  we  fail  to 
stretch  our  legs  with  a  five  or  six  mile  jaunt. 
I  speak  of  those  of  us  who  foot  it.  The 
more  ease-loving,  or  less  uneasy  members  of 
the  party,  who  keep  their  carriage,  are  nat- 
urally less  independent  of  outside  conditions. 
When  it  rains  they  amuse  themselves  in- 
doors ;  a  pitch  of  sensibleness  which  the  rest 
of  us  may  sometimes  regard  with  a  shade  of 
envy,  perhaps,  though  we  have  never  admit- 
ted as  much  to  each  other,  much  less  to  any 
one  else.  To  plod  through  the  mud  is  more 
exhilarating  than  to  sit  before  a  fire ;  and 
we  leave  the  question  of  reasonableness  and 
animal  comfort  on  one  side.     Time  is  short, 


AUTUMN  5 

and  we  decline  to  waste  it  on  theoretical  con- 
siderations. 

Our  company,  as  I  say,  is  divided :  car- 
riage people  and  pedestrians,  we  may  call 
tliem  ;  or,  if  you  like,  drivers  and  footmen. 
The  walkers  are  now  no  more  than  the 
others.  Formerly — till  this  present  autumn 
—  they  were  three.  Now,  alas,  one  of  them 
walks  no  longer  on  earth.  The  hills  that 
knew  him  so  well  know  him  no  more.  The 
asters  and  goldenrods  bloom,  but  he  comes 
not  to  gather  them.  The  maples  redden,  but 
he  comes  not  to  see  them.  Yet  in  a  better 
and  truer  sense  he  is  with  us  still ;  for  we  re- 
member him,  and  continually  talk  of  him. 
If  we  pass  a  sphagnum  bog,  we  think  how 
at  this  point  he  used  to  turn  aside  and  put 
a  few  mosses  into  his  box.  Some  professor 
in  Germany,  or  a  scholar  in  New  Haven,  had 
asked  him  to  collect  additional  specimens. 
In  those  days  of  his  sphagnum  absorption 
we  called  him  sometimes  the  "  sphagnostic." 

If  we  come  down  a  certain  steep  pitch  in 
the  road  from  Garnet  Hill,  we  remind  each 
other  that  here  he  always  stopped  to  look  for 
Aster  Lindleyanus,  telling   us   meanwhile 


6  FOOTING   IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

how  problematical  the  identity  of  the  plant 
really  was.  Professor  So-and-So  had  pro- 
nounced it  Lindleyanus,  but  Doctor  Some- 
body-Else believed  it  to  be  only  an  odd  form 
of  a  commoner  species.  In  the  Yf  allace  Hill 
woods,  I  remember  how  we  spent  an  after- 
noon there,  he  and  I,  only  two  years  ago, 
searching  for  an  orchid  which  just  then  had 
come  newly  under  discussion  among  botan- 
ists, and  how  pleased  he  was  when  for  once 
my  eyes  were  luckier  than  his.  If  we  are 
on  the  LandafP  road,  my  companion  asks, 
"  Do  you  remember  the  Sunday  noon  when 

we  went  home  and  told  E that  this  wood 

was  full  of  his  rare  willow?  And  how  he 
posted  over  here  by  himself,  directly  after 
dinner,  to  see  it  ?  And  how  he  said,  in  a  tone 
of  whimsical  entreaty,  '  Please  don't  find  it 
anywhere  else ;  we  must  n't  let  it  become  too 
common  '  ?  "  Oh  yes,  I  remember  ;  and  my 
companion  knows  he  has  no  need  to  remind 
me  of  it ;  but  he  loves  to  talk  of  the  absent, 
—  and  he  knows  I  love  to  hear  him. 

That  willow  I  can  never  see  anywhere 
without  thinking  of  the  man  who  first  told 
me  about  it.     Whether  I   pass   the  single 


AUTUMN  7 

small  specimen  between  Franconia  and  the 
Profile  House,  so  close  upon  the  highway 
that  the  road-menders  are  continually  cut- 
ting it  back,  or  the  one  on  the  Bethlehem 
road,  or  the  great  cluster  of  stems  on  Wal- 
lace Hill,  it  will  always  be  Ms  willow. 

And  indeed  this  whole  beautiful  hill  coun- 
try is  his.  How  happy  he  was  in  it !  I  used 
sometimes  to  talk  to  him  about  the  glories 
of  our  Southern  mountains,  —  Tennessee, 
North  Carolina,  Virginia ;  but  he  was  never 
to  be  enticed  away  even  in  thought.  "I 
think  I  shall  never  go  out  of  New  England 
again,"  he  would  answer,  with  a  smile ;  and 
he  never  did,  though  in  his  youth  he  had 
traveled  more  widely  than  I  am  ever  likely 
to  do.  The  very  roadsides  here  must  miss 
him,  and  wonder  why  he  no  longer  passes, 
with  his  botanical  box  slung  over  his  shoul- 
der and  an  opera-glass  in  his  hand,  —  equally 
ready  for  a  plant  or  a  bird.  He  was  always 
looking  for  something,  and  always  finding  it. 
"With  his  happiness,  his  goodness,  his  gentle 
dignity,  his  philosophic  temper,  his  know- 
ledge of  his  own  mind,  his  love  of  all  things 
beautiful,  he  has  made  Franconia  a  dear 
place  for  all  of  us  who  knew  him  here. 


8  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

To  me,  as  to  all  of  us,  it  is  dear  also  for 
its  own  sake.  This  season  I  returned  to  it 
alone,  —  with  no  walking  mate,  I  mean  to 
say.  He  was  to  join  me  later,  but  for  eight 
or  ten  days  I  was  to  follow  the  road  by  my- 
self. At  night  I  must  make  my  own  forecast 
of  the  weather  and  lay  out  my  own  morrow. 

The  first  day  was  one  of  the  good  ones, 
fair  and  still.  As  I  came  out  upon  the 
piazza  before  breakfast  and  looked  up  at 
Lafayette,  a  solitary  vireo  was  phrasing 
sweetly  from  the  bushes  on  one  side  of  the 
house,  and  two  or  three  vesper  sparrows 
were  remembering  the  summer  from  the  open 
fields  on  the  other  side.  It  was  the  2 2d  of 
September,  and  by  this  time  the  birds  knew 
how  to  appreciate  a  day  of  brightness  and 
warmth. 

Seeing  them  in  such  a  mood,  I  determined 
to  spend  the  forenoon  in  their  society.  I 
would  take  the  road  to  Sinclair's  MiUs,  —  a 
woodsy  jaunt,  yet  not  too  much  in  the  forest, 
always  birdy  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

"  This  is  living !  "  I  found  myself  repeat- 
ing aloud,  as  I  went  up  the  longish  hill  to 
the  plateau  above  Gale  Eiver,  on  the  Beth- 


AUTUMN  9 

lehem  road.  "This  is  living!"  No  more 
books,  no  more  manuscripts,  —  my  own  or 
other  people's,  —  no  more  errands  to  the 
city.  How  good  the  air  was  !  How  glori- 
ous the  mountains,  unclouded,  but  hazy ! 
How  fragrant  the  ripening  herbage  in  the 
shelter  of  the  woods !  —  an  odor  caught  for 
an  instant,  and  then  gone  again ;  something 
that  came  of  itself,  not  to  be  detected,  much 
less  traced  to  its  source,  by  any  effort  or 
waiting.  The  forests  were  still  green,  —  I 
had  to  look  closely  to  find  here  and  there 
the  first  touch  of  red  or  yellow ;  but  the 
flowering  season  was  mostly  over,  a  few 
ragged  asters  and  goldenrods  being  the  chief 
brighteners  of  the  wayside.  About  the  sun- 
nier patches  of  them,  about  the  asters  espe- 
cially, insects  were  hovering,  still  drinking 
honey  before  it  should  be  too  late :  yellow 
butterflies,  bumble-bees  (of  some  northern 
kind,  apparently,  marked  with  orange,  and 
not  so  large  as  our  common  Massachusetts 
fellow),  with  swarms  of  smaller  creatures  of 
many  sorts.  If  I  stopped  to  attend  to  it, 
each  aster  bunch  was  a  world  by  itself.  And 
more  than  once  I  did  stop.     There  was  no 


10         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

haste  ;  I  had  chosen  my  route  partly  with  a 
view  to  just  such  idling  ;  and  the  birds  were, 
and  were  likely  to  be,  nothing  but  old  favor- 
ites. And  they  proved  to  be  not  many, 
after  aU.  The  best  of  them  were  the  winter 
wrens,  which  I  thought  I  had  never  seen 
more  numerous ;  every  one  fretting,  tut^  tut^ 
in  their  characteristic  manner,  without  a  note 
of  song. 

On  my  way  back,  the  sun  being  higher, 
there  were  many  butterflies  in  the  road,  flat 
on  the  sand,  with  wings  outspread.  If  ever 
there  is  comfort  in  the  world,  the  butterfly 
feels  it  at  such  times.  Here  and  there  half 
a  dozen  or  more  of  yellow  ones  would  be  hud- 
dled about  a  damp  spot.  There  were  mourn- 
ing-cloaks, also,  and  many  small  angle-wings, 
some  species  of  Grapta^  I  knew  not  which, 
of  a  peculiarly  bright  red.  Once  or  twice, 
wishing  a  name  for  them,  I  essayed  to  catch 
a  specimen  under  my  hat ;  but  it  seemed  a 
small  business,  at  which  I  was  only  half 
ashamed  to  find  myself  grown  inexpert. 

The  forenoon  was  not  without  its  tragedy, 
nevertheless.  As  I  came  out  into  the  open, 
on  my  return  from  the  river  woods  toward 


AUTUMN  11 

the  Bethlehem  road,  a  carriage  stopped 
across  the  field  ;  a  man  jumped  out,  gun  in 
hand,  ran  up  to  an  unoccupied  house  stand- 
ing there  by  itself,  with  a  tract  of  low  mea- 
dow behind  it,  peeped  cautiously  round  the 
corner,  lifted  his  gun,  leveled  it  upon  some- 
thing with  the  quickness  of  a  practiced 
marksman,  and  fired.  Then  down  the  grassy 
slope  he  went  on  the  run  out  of  sight,  and 
in  a  minute  reappeared,  holding  a  crow  by 
its  claw.  He  took  the  trophy  into  the  car- 
riage with  him,  —  two  ladies  and  a  second 
man  occupying  the  other  seats,  —  and  as  I 
emerged  from  the  pine  wood,  fifteen  minutes 
afterward,  I  found  it  lying  in  the  middle  of 
the  road.  Its  shining  feathers  would  fly  no 
more ;  but  its  death  had  brightened  the  day 
of  some  of  the  lords  and  ladies  of  creation. 
What  happier  fate  could  a  crow  ask  for  ? 

One  of  my  first  desires,  this  time  (there 
is  always  something  in  particular  on  my 
mind  when  I  go  to  Franconia),  was  to  re- 
visit Lonesome  Lake,  a  romantic  sheet  of 
water  lying  deep  in  the  wilderness  on  the 
back  side  of  Mount  Cannon,  at  an  elevation 
of  perhaps   twenty-eight   hundred   feet,   or 


12  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

something  less  than  a  thousand  feet  above 
the  level  of  Profile  Notch.  One  of  its  two 
owners,  fortunately,  is  of  our  Franconia 
company  ;  and  when  I  spoke  of  my  intention 
of  visiting  it  again,  he  bade  me  drive  up 
with  his  man,  who  would  be  going  that  way 
within  a  day  or  two.  Late  as  the  season 
was  getting,  he  still  went  up  to  the  lake  once 
or  twice  a  week,  it  appeared,  keeping  watch 
over  the  cabin,  boat-house,  and  so  forth.  The 
plan  suited  my  convenience  perfectly.  We 
drove  to  the  foot  of  the  bridle  path,  off  the 
Notch  road ;  the  man  put  a  saddle  on  the 
horse  and  rode  up,  and  I  followed  on  foot. 

The  climb  is  longer  or  shorter,  as  the 
climber  may  elect.  A  pedestrian  would  do 
it  in  thirty  minutes,  or  a  little  less,  I  sup- 
pose ;  a  nature-loving  stroller  may  profitably 
be  two  hours  about  it.  There  must  be  at 
least  a  hundred  trees  along  the  path,  which 
a  sensitive  man  might  be  glad  to  stop  and 
commune  with :  ancient  birches,  beeches, 
and  spruces,  any  one  of  which,  if  it  could 
talk,  or  rather  if  we  had  ears  to  hear  it, 
would  tell  us  things  not  to  be  read  in 
any  book.      Hundreds  of  years  many  of  the 


AUTUMN  13 

spruces  must  have  stood  there.  Some  of 
them,  in  all  likeliliood,  were  of  a  good  height 
long  before  any  white  man  set  foot  on  tliis 
continent.  Many  of  them  were  already  old 
before  they  ever  saw  a  paleface.  What 
dwarfs  and  weaklings  these  restless  creatures 
are,  that  once  in  a  while  come  puffing  up  the 
hillside,  halting  every  few  minutes  to  get 
their  breath  and  stare  foolishly  about ! 
What  murderer's  curse  is  on  them,  that  they 
have  no  home,  no  abiding-place,  where  they 
can  stay  and  get  their  growth? 

It  is  a  precious  and  solemn  stillness  that 
falls  upon  a  man  in  these  lofty  woods. 
Across  the  narrow  pass,  as  he  looks  through 
the  branches,  are  the  long,  rugged  upper 
slopes  of  Lafayette,  torn  with  slides  and 
gashed  into  deep  ravines.  Far  over  his  head 
soar  the  trees,  tall,  branchless  trunks  push- 
ing upward  and  upward,  seeking  the  sun. 
In  their  leafy  tops  the  wind  murmurs,  and 
here  and  there  a  bird  is  stirring.  Now  a 
chickadee  lisps,  or  a  nuthatch  calls  to  his 
fellow.  Out  of  the  tangled,  round-leaved 
hobble-bushes  underneath  an  occasional  robin 
may  start  with  a  quick  note  of  surprise,  or  a 


14         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

flock  of  white-tliroats  or  snowbirds  will  fly 
up  one  by  one  to  gaze  at  the  intruder.  In 
one  place  I  hear  the  faint  smooth-voiced 
signals  of  a  group  of  Swainson  thrushes  and 
the  chuck  of  a  hermit.  A  few  siskins  (rarer 
than  usual  this  year,  it  seems  to  me)  pass 
overhead,  sounding  their  curious,  long-drawn 
whistle,  as  if  they  were  blowing  through  a 
fine-toothed  comb.  Further  up,  I  stand  still 
at  the  tapping  of  a  woodpecker  just  before 
me.  Yes,  there  he  is,  on  a  dead  spruce.  A 
sapsucker,  I  caU  him  at  the  first  glance.  But 
I  raise  my  glass.  No,  it  is  not  a  sapsucker, 
but  a  bird  of  one  of  the  three-toed  species  ; 
a  male,  for  I  see  his  yeUow  crown-patch. 
His  back  is  black.  And  now,  of  a  sudden, 
a  second  one  joins  him.  I  am  in  great  luck. 
This  is  a  bird  I  have  never  seen  before  ex- 
cept once,  and  that  many  years  ago  on  Mount 
Washington,  in  Tuckerman's  Eavine.  The 
pair  are  gone  too  soon,  and,  patiently  as  I 
linger  about  the  spot,  I  see  no  more  of  them. 
A  pity  they  could  not  have  broken  silence. 
It  is  little  we  know  of  a  bird  or  of  a  man  tiU 
we  hear  him  speak. 

At  the  lake  there  are  certain  to  be  num- 


AUTUMN  15 

bers  of  birds ;  not  water  birds,  for  the  most 
part,  —  thougli  I  steal  forward  quietly  at  tbe 
last,  hoping  to  surprise  a  duck  or  two,  or  a 
few  sandpipers,  as  sometimes  I  have  done,  — 
but  birds  of  the  woods.  The  water  makes  a 
break  in  the  wilderness,  —  a  natural  rendez- 
vous, as  we  may  say  ;  it  lets  in  the  sun,  also, 
and  attracts  insects ;  and  birds  of  many 
kinds  seem  to  enjoy  its  neighborhood.  I  do 
not  wonder.  To-day  I  notice  first  a  large 
flock  of  white-throats,  and  a  smaller  flock  of 
cedar-birds.  The  latter,  when  I  first  dis- 
cover them,  are  in  the  conical  tops  of  the 
tall  spruces,  whence  they  rise  into  the  air 
one  after  another,  with  a  peculiar  motion,  as 
if  a  hand  had  tossed  them  aloft.  They  are 
catching  insects,  a  business  at  which  no  bird 
can  be  more  graceful,  I  think,  though  some 
may  have  been  at  it  longer  and  more  exclu- 
sively. Their  behavior  is  suggestive  of  play 
rather  than  of  a  serious  occupation.  Near 
the  white-throats  are  snowbirds,  and  in  the 
firs  by  the  lakeside  chickadees  are  stirring, 
among  which,  to  my  great  satisfaction,  I 
presently  hear  a  few  Hudsonian  voices.  Sich- 
a-day-day^  they  call,  and  soon  a  little  brown- 


16         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

headed  fellow  is  directly  at  my  elbow.  I 
stretcli  out  my  hand,  and  chirp  encourag- 
ingly. He  comes  within  three  or  four  feet 
of  it,  and  looks  and  looks  at  me,  but  is  not 
to  be  coaxed  nearer.  Sich-a-day-day-day, 
he  calls  again  ("  I  don't  like  strangers,"  he 
means  to  tell  me),  and  away  he  flits.  He  is 
almost  always  here,  and  right  glad  I  am  to 
see  him  on  my  annual  visit.  I  have  never 
been  favored  with  a  sight  of  him  further 
south. 

The  lake  is  like  a  mirror,  and  I  sit  in  the 
boat  with  the  sun  on  my  back  (as  comfort- 
able as  a  butterfly),  listening  and  looking. 
What  else  can  I  do  ?  I  have  puUed  out 
far  enough  to  bring  the  top  of  Lafayette 
into  view  above  the  trees,  and  have  put 
down  the  oars.  The  birds  are  mostly  in- 
visible. Chickadees  can  be  heard  talking 
among  themselves,  a  flicker  calls  wicker, 
wicker,  whatever  that  means,  and  once  a 
kingfisher  springs  his  rattle.  Ked  squirrels 
seem  to  be  ubiquitous,  full  of  sauciness  and 
chatter.  How  very  often  their  clocks  need 
winding !  A  few  big  dragon-flies  are  stiU 
shooting  over  the  water.     But  the  best  thing 


AUTUMN  17 

of  all  is  tlie  place  itself :  the  solitude,  the 
brooding  sky  (the  lake's  own,  it  seems  to  be), 
the  solemn  momitain  top,  the  encircling  for- 
est, the  musical  woodsy  stillness.  The  rowan 
trees  were  never  so  bright  with  berries. 
Here  and  there  one  still  holds  full  of  green 
leaves,  with  the  ripe  red  clusters  shining 
everywhere  among  them. 

After  luncheon  I  must  sit  for  a  while  in 
the  forest  itself.  Every  breath  in  the  tree- 
tops,  unfelt  at  my  level,  brings  down  a 
sprinkling  of  yellow  birch  leaves,  each  with 
a  faint  rustle,  like  a  whispered  good-by,  as 
it  strikes  against  the  twigs  in  its  fall. 
Every  one  preaches  its  sermon,  and  I  know 
the  text,— "We  aU  do  fade."  May  the 
rest  of  us  be  as  happy  as  the  leaves,  and 
fade  only  when  the  time  is  ripe.  A  nut- 
hatch, busy  with  his  day's  work,  passes  near 
me.  Small  as  he  is,  I  hear  his  wing-beats. 
A  squirrel  jumps  upon  the  very  log  on  which 
I  am  seated,  but  is  off  in  a  jiffy  on  catching 
sight  of  so  unexpected  a  neighbor.  So  short 
a  log  is  not  big  enough  for  two  of  us,  he 
thinks.  By  and  by  I  hear  a  bird  stirring 
on  a  branch  overhead,  and  look  up  to  find 


18         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Mm  a  red-eyed  vireo.  One  of  the  belated, 
he  must  be,  according  to  my  almanac.  He 
peers  down  at  me  with  inquisitive,  sidelong 
glances.  A  man  !  —  in  such  a  j)lace  !  — 
and  sitting  still !  I  like  to  believe  that  he, 
as  well  as  I,  feels  a  pleasurable  surprise  at 
the  unlooked-for  encounter.  We  call  him 
the  preacher,  but  he  is  not  sermonizing  to- 
day, perhaps  because  the  falling  leaves  have 
taken  the  words  out  of  his  mouth. 

It  is  one  of  the  best  things  about  a  place 
like  this  that  it  gives  a  man  a  most  unusual 
feeling  of  remoteness  and  isolation.  To  be 
here  is  not  the  same  as  to  be  in  some  equally 
wild  and  silent  spot  nearer  to  human  habita- 
tions. The  sense  of  the  climb  we  have 
made,  of  the  wilderness  we  have  traversed, 
still  folds  us  about.  The  fever  and  the  fret, 
so  constant  with  us  as  to  be  mostly  unreal- 
ized or  taken  for  the  normal  state  of  man, 
are  for  the  moment  gone,  and  peace  settles 
upon  the  heart.  For  myself,  at  least,  there 
is  an  unspeakable  sweetness  in  such  an  hour. 
I  could  stay  here,  forever,  I  think,  till  I  be- 
came a  tree.  That  feeling  I  have  often  had, 
—  a  state  of  ravishment,  a  kind  of  absorp- 


AUTUMN  19 

tion  into  the  life  of  things  about  me.  It 
will  not  last,  and  I  know  it  wiU  not ;  but  it 
is  like  heaven,  for  the  time  it  is  on  me,  —  a 
foretaste,  perhaps,  of  the  true  Nirvana. 

Yet  to-day  —  so  self -contradictory  a  crea- 
ture is  man  —  there  were  some  things  I 
missed.  The  dreamer  was  stiU  a  hobbyist, 
and  the  hobbyist  had  been  in  the  Lonesome 
Lake  woods  before ;  and  he  wondered  what 
had  become  of  the  crossbills.  The  common 
red  ones  were  always  here,  I  should  have 
said,  and  on  more  than  one  visit  I  had  found 
the  rarer  and  loveher  white-winged  species. 
Now,  in  all  the  forest  chorus,  not  a  cross- 
bill's note  was  audible. 

One  day,  bright  like  this,  I  was  sitting  at 
luncheon  on  the  sunny  stoop  of  the  cabin, 
facing  the  water,  when  I  caught  a  sudden 
glimpse  of  a  white-wing,  as  I  felt  sure,  about 
some  small  decaying  gray  logs  on  the  edge 
of  the  lake  just  before  me,  the  remains  of  a 
disused  landing.  The  next  moment  the  bird 
dropped  out  of  sight  between  two  of  them. 
I  sat  motionless,  glass  in  hand,  and  eyes 
fixed  (so  I  could  almost  have  made  oath) 
upon  the  spot  where  he  had  disappeared.     I 


20  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

fancied  lie  was  at  his  batli.  Minute  after 
minute  elapsed.  There  was  no  sign  of  him, 
and  at  last  I  left  my  seat  and  made  my  way 
stealthily  down  to  the  shore.  Nothing  rose. 
I  tramped  over  the  logs,  with  no  result.  It 
was  like  magic,  —  the  work  of  some  evil 
spirit.  I  began  almost  to  believe  that  my 
eyes  had  been  made  the  fools  of  the  other 
senses.  If  I  had  seen  a  bird  there,  where 
in  the  name  of  reason  could  it  have  gone  ? 
It  could  not  have  dropped  into  the  water, 
seeking  winter  quarters  in  the  mud  at  the 
bottom,  according  to  the  notions  of  our  old- 
time  ornithologists ! 

Half  an  hour  afterward,  having  finished 
my  limcheon,  I  went  into  the  woods  along 
the  path  ;  and  there,  presently,  I  discovered 
a  mixed  flock  of  crossbills,  —  red  ones  and 
white- wings,  —  feeding  so  quietly  that  till 
now  I  had  not  suspected  their  presence. 
My  waterside  bird  was  doubtless  among 
them ;  and  doubtless  my  eyes  had  not  been 
fixed  upon  the  place  of  his  disappearance 
quite  so  uninterruptedly  as  I  had  imagined. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  such  a  thing 
had  happened  to  me.     How  frequently  have 


AUTUMN  21 

we  all  seen  a  bird  dart  into  a  bit  of  cover, 
and  never  come  out !  If  we  are  watchful 
and  clever,  we  are  not  tlie  only  ones. 

Luck  lias  no  little  to  do  with  a  bird-lover's 
success  or  failure  in  any  particular  walk. 
If  we  go  and  go,  patience  wiU  have  its 
wages  ;  but  if  we  can  go  but  once  or  twice, 
we  must  take  what  Fortune  sends,  be  it  little 
or  much.  So  it  had  been  with  me  and  the 
three-toed  woodpeckers,  that  morning.  I 
had  chanced  to  arrive  at  that  precise  point 
in  the  path  just  at  the  moment  when  they 
chanced  to  alight  upon  that  dead  spruce,  — 
one  tree  among  a  million.  What  had  been 
there  ten  minutes  before,  and  what  came  ten 
minutes  after,  I  shaU  never  know.  So  it 
was  again  on  the  descent,  which  I  protracted 
as  much  as  possible,  for  love  of  the  woods 
and  for  the  ho23e  of  what  I  might  find  in 
them.  I  was  perhaps  halfway  down  when  I 
heard  tln^ush  calls  near  by :  the  whistle  of 
an  olive-back  and  the  chuck  of  a  hermit, 
both  strongly  characteristic,  slight  as  they 
seem.  I  halted,  of  course,  and  on  the  in- 
stant some  large  bird  flew  past  me  and 
perched  in  full  sight,  only  a  few  rods  away. 


22  FOOTING   IT   IN  FRANCONIA 

There  he  sat  facing  me,  a  barred  owl,  his 
black  eyes  staring  straight  into  mine.  How 
big  and  solemn  they  looked  !  Never  tell  me 
that  the  barred  owl  cannot  see  by  dayhght. 

The  thrushes  had  followed  him.  It  was 
he,  and  not  a  human  intruder,  to  whom  they 
had  been  addressing  themselves.  Soon  the 
owl  flew  a  little  further  away  (it  was  won- 
derful how  large  he  looked  in  the  air),  the 
thrushes  still  after  him  ;  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes more  he  took  wing  again.  This  time 
several  robins  joined  the  hermit  and  the 
olive-back,  and  all  hands  disappeared  up  the 
mountain  side.  Probably  the  pursuers  were 
largely  reinforced  as  the  chase  proceeded, 
and  I  imagined  the  big  fellow  pretty  thor- 
oughly mobbed  before  he  got  safely  away. 
Every  small  bird  has  his  opinion  of  an  owl. 

What  interested  me  as  much  as  anything 
connected  with  the  whole  affair  was  the  fact 
that  the  olive-back,  even  in  his  excitement, 
made  use  of  nothing  but  his  mellow  staccato 
whistle,  such  as  he  employs  against  the  most 
inoffensive  of  chance  human  disturbers. 
Like  the  chickadee,  and  perhaps  some  other 
birds,  he  is  musical,  and  not  over-emphatic, 
even  in  his  anger. 


AUTUMN  23 

Again  and  again  I  rested  to  admire  the 
glory  of  Mount  Lafayette,  which  loomed 
more  grandly  than  ever,  I  was  ready  to  de- 
clare, seen  thus  partially  and  from  this  point 
of  vantage.  Twice,  at  least,  I  had  been  on 
its  summit  in  such  a  fall  day,  —  once  on  the 
1st  of  October,  and  again,  the  year  after- 
ward, on  a  date  two  days  earlier.  That 
October  day  was  one  of  the  fairest  I  ever 
knew,  both  in  itself  (and  perfect  weather  is 
a  rare  thing,  try  as  we  ma^y  to  speak  notliing 
but  good  of  the  doings  of  Providence)  and 
in  the  pleasure  it  brought  me. 

For  the  next  year's  ascent,  which  I  re- 
member more  in  detail,  we  chose  —  a  bro- 
ther Franconian  and  myself  —  a  morning 
when  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  as  seen  from 
the  valley  lands,  were  white  with  frost  or 
snow.  We  wished  to  find  out  for  ourselves 
which  it  was,  and  just  how  the  mountain 
looked  under  such  wintry  conditions. 

The  spectacle  would  have  repaid  us  for  a 
harder  climb.  A  cold  northwest  wind  (it 
was  still  blowing)  had  swept  over  the  sum- 
mit and  coated  everything  it  struck,  foliage 
and  rocks  alike,  with  a  thick  frost  (half  an 


24  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

incli  or  more  in  clepth,  if  my  memory  is  to  be 
trusted),  white  as  snow,  but  almost  as  bard 
as  ice.  The  effect  was  strangely  beautiful. 
A  dwarf  fir  tree,  for  instance,  would  be  snow 
white  on  one  side  and  bright  green  on  the 
other.  As  we  looked  along  the  sharp  ridge 
running  to  the  South  Peak,  so  called  (the 
very  ridge  at  the  face  of  which  I  was  now 
gazing  from  the  Lonesome  Lake  path),  one 
slope  was  white,  the  other  green.  Summer 
and  winter  were  divided  by  an  inch. 

We  nestled  in  the  shelter  of  the  rocks,  on 
the  south  side  of  the  summit,  courting  the 
sun  and  avoiding  the  wind,  and  lay  there 
for  two  hours,  exulting  in  the  prospect,  and 
between  times  nibbling  our  luncheon,  which 
latter  we  "  toj)ped  off  "  with  a  famous  dessert 
of  berries,  gathered  on  the  spot :  three  sorts 
of  blueberries,  and,  for  a  sour,  the  moun- 
tain cranberry.  The  blueberries  were  Vac- 
cinium  iiliginosum^  V.  ccesjntosum^  and  V. 
Pennsylvanicum  (there  is  no  doing  without 
the  Latin  names),  their  comparative  abun- 
dance being  in  the  order  given.  The  first 
two  were  really  plentiful.  All  of  them,  of 
course,  grew  on  dwarf  bushes,  matting  the 


Tmm-^'  ■  •'"■'"■^ 


AUTUMN  25 

ground  between  the  boulders.  At  that  ex- 
posed heigbt  not  even  a  blueberry  bush  ven- 
tures to  stand  upright.  One  of  them,  V. 
csespitosum,  was  both  a  surprise  and  a  lux- 
ury, the  small  berries  having  a  most  deli- 
ciously  rich  fruity  flavor,  like  the  choicest 
of  bananas  !  Probably  no  botanical  writer 
has  ever  mentioned  the  point,  and  I  have 
great  satisfaction  in  supplying  the  deficiency, 
apprehending  no  rush  of  epicures  to  the  place 
in  consequence.  About  the  fact  itself  there 
can  be  no  manner  of  doubt.  My  companion 
fully  agreed  with  me,  and  he  is  not  only  a 
botanist  of  international  repute,  but  a  most 
capable  gastronomer.  Much  the  poorest 
berry  of  the  three  was  the  Pennsylvanian, 
the  common  low  blueberry  of  Massachusetts. 
"  Strawberry  huckleberry "  it  used  to  be 
called  in  my  day  by  Old  Colony  children, 
with  a  double  disregard  of  scientific  proprie- 
ties. Even  thus  late  in  the  season  the  Green- 
land sandwort  was  in  perfectly  fresh  bloom ; 
but  the  high  cold  wind  made  it  a  poor  "  bird 
day,"  though  I  remember  a  white-throated 
sparrow  singing  cheerily  near  Eagle  Lake, 
and  a  large  hawk  or  eagle  floating  high  over 


26         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

tlie  summit.    At  the  sight  my  f eUow  travele.r 

broke  out,  — 

*'  My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 
An  eagle  in  the  sky." 

On  that  point,  as  concerning  the  fine  quali- 
ties of  the  cespitose  blueberry,  we  were  fuUy 
agreed. 

Even  in  Franconia,  however,  most  of  our 
days  are  spent,  not  in  mountain  paths,  but 
in  the  valley  and  lower  hiU  roads.  We  keep 
out  of  the  mountains  partly  because  we  love 
to  look  at  them  ("  I  pitch  my  walk  low,  but 
my  prospects  high,"  says  an  old  poet),  and 
partly,  perhaps,  because  the  paths  to  their 
summits  have  seemed  to  faU  out  of  repair, 
and  even  to  become  steeper,  with  the  lapse 
of  years.  One  of  my  good  trips,  this  au- 
tumn, was  over  the  road  toward  Littleton, 
and  then  back  in  the  direction  of  Betlilehem 
as  far  as  the  end  of  the  Indian  Brook  road. 
That,  as  I  planned  it,  would  be  no  more  than 
six  or  seven  miles,  at  the  most,  and  there  I 
was  to  be  met  by  the  driving  members  of  the 
club,  who  would  bring  me  home  for  the  mid- 
day meal,  —  an  altogether  comfortable  ar- 
rangement.   It  is  good  to  have  time  to  spare, 


AUTUMN  27 

so  that  one  can  dally  along,  fearful  only  of 
arriving  at  the  end  of  the  way  too  soon. 
Such  was  now  my  favored  condition,  and  I 
made  the  most  of  it.  If  I  crossed  a  brook, 
I  stayed  awhile  to  listen  to  it  and  moralize 
its  song.  If  a  flock  of  bluebirds  and  spar- 
rows were  twittering  about  a  farmer's  barn, 
I  lingered  a  little  to  watch  their  doings. 
When  a  wliite-crowned  sparrow  or  a  par- 
tridge showed  itself  in  the  road  in  advance 
of  me,  that  was  reason  enough  for  another 
halt.  It  is  a  pretty  picture :  a  partridge 
caught  unexpectedly  in  the  open,  its  ruff 
erect,  and  its  tail,  fully  spread,  snapping 
nervously  with  every  quick,  furtive  step. 
And  the  fine  old  trees  in  the  Littleton  hiU 
woods  were  of  themselves  sufficient,  on  a 
warm  day  like  this,  to  detain  any  one  who 
was  neither  a  worldling  nor  a  man  sent  for 
the  doctor.  They  detained  me,  at  all  events ; 
and  very  glad  I  was  to  sit  down  more  than 
once  for  a  good  season  vdth  them. 

And  so  the  hours  passed.  At  the  top  of 
the  road,  in  the  clearing  by  the  farms,  I 
met  a  pale,  straight-backed  young  feUow 
under  a  military  hat.    "  You  look  like  a  man 


28  FOOTING  IT  IN  FKANCONIA 

from  Cuba  or  from  Chickamauga,"  I  ventured 
to  say.  "  Chickamauga,"  he  answered  lacon- 
ically, and  marched  on.  Whether  it  was 
typhoid  fever  or  simple  "  malaria  "  that  had 
whitened  his  face  there  was  no  chance  to  in- 
quire. He  was  munching  an  apple,  which 
at  that  moment  was  also  my  own  occupation. 
I  had  just  stopped  under  a  promising-look- 
ing tree,  whose  generous  branches  spilled 
their  crop  over  the  roadside  wall,  —  excellent 
"  common  fruit,"  as  Franconians  say,  mel- 
low, but  with  a  lively,  ungrafted  tang.  Here 
in  this  sunny  stretch  of  road  were  more  of 
my  small  Grapta  butterflies,  and  presently  I 
came  upon  a  splendid  tortoise-shell  (^Va- 
nessa Mlherti).  That  I  would  certainly 
have  captured  had  I  been  armed  with  a  net. 
I  had  seen  two  like  it  the  day  before,  to  the 
surprise  of  my  friends  the  carriage  people, 
ardent  entomological  collectors,  both  of  them. 
They  had  found  not  a  single  specimen  the 
whole  season  through.  "  There  are  some 
advantages  in  beating  out  the  miles  on 
foot,"  I  said  to  myself.  I  have  never  seen 
this  strikingly  handsome  butterfly  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, as  I  once  did  its  rival  in  beauty, 


AUTUMN  29 

the  banded  purple  (Arthemis)  ;  and  even 
here  in  the  hill  country  it  is  never  so  com- 
mon as  to  lose  that  precious  bloom  which 
rarity  puts  upon  whatever  it  touches. 

As  I  turned  down  the  Betlilehem  road, 
the  valley  and  hill  prospects  on  the  left  be- 
came increasingly  beautiful.  Here  I  passed 
hermit  thrushes  (it  was  good  to  see  them 
already  so  numerous  again,  after  the  de- 
struction that  had  wasted  them  a  few  win- 
ters ago),  a  catbird  or  two,  and  a  few  ruby- 
crowned  kinglets,  —  some  of  them  singing, 
—  and  before  long  found  myself  within  the 
limits  of  a  rich  man's  red  farm  ;  fences, 
houses,  barns,  poultry  coops,  and  the  rest, 
all  painted  of  the  same  deep  color,  as  if  to 
say,  "  All  this  is  mine."  I  remembered  the 
estate  well,  and  have  never  grudged  the 
owner  of  it  his  lordly  possessions.  I  enjoy 
them,  also,  in  my  own  way.  He  keeps  his 
roads  in  apple-pie  order,  without  meddling 
with  their  natural  beauty  (I  wish  our  Mas- 
sachusetts "  highway  surveyors  "  all  worked 
under  his  orders,  or  were  endowed  with  his 
taste),  and  is  at  pains  to  save  his  woods  from 
the  hands  of  the  spoiler.     "  Please  do  not 


30         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

peel  bark  from  the  bircli  trees,"  —  so  the 
signs  read ;  and  I  say  Amen.  He  has  splen- 
did flower  gardens,  too,  and  plants  them 
well  out  upon  the  wayside  for  all  men  to 
enjoy.  Long  may  it  be  before  his  soul  is 
required  of  him. 

By  this  time  I  was  in  the  very  prettiest 
of  the  red-farm  woods.  Hermit  thrushes 
were  there,  also,  standing  upright  in  the 
middle  of  the  road,  and  in  the  forest  hylas 
were  peeping,  one  of  them  a  real  champion 
for  the  loudness  of  his  tone.  How  full  of 
glory  the  place  was,  with  the  sunhght  sifting 
through  the  bright  leaves  and  flickering 
upon  the  shining  birch  trunks !  If  I  were 
an  artist,  I  think  I  would  paint  wood  inte- 
riors. 

My  forenoon's  walk  was  ended.  Another 
turn  in  the  road,  and  I  saw  the  carriage  be- 
fore me,  the  driver  minding  the  horses,  and 
the  passengers'  seat  vacant.  The  entomolo- 
gists had  gone  into  the  woods  looking  for 
specimens,  and  there  I  joined  them.  They 
were  in  search  of  beetles,  they  said,  and  had 
no  objection  to  my  assistance  ;  I  had  better 
look  for  decaying  toadstools.    This  was  easy 


AUTUMN  31 

work,  I  thought ;  but,  as  is  always  the  way 
with  my  efforts  at  iusect  collecting,  I  could 
fiiicl  nothing  to  the  purpose.  The  best  I 
could  do  was  to  bring  mushrooms  full  of 
maggots  (larvae,  the  carrier  of  the  cyanide 
and  alcohol  bottles  called  them),  and  what 
was  desired  was  the  beetles  which  the  larvae 
turned  into.  Once  I  announced  a  small  spi- 
der, but  the  bottle-holder  said.  No,  it  was 
not  a  spider,  but  a  mite  ;  and  there  was  no 
disputing  an  expert,  who  had  published  a 
list  of  Franconia  spiders,  —  one  hundred 
and  forty-nine  species !  (She  had  wished 
very  much  for  one  more  name,  she  told  me, 
but  her  friend  and  assistant  had  remarked 
that  the  odd  number  would  look  more  hon- 
est !)  However,  it  is  a  poor  sort  of  man 
who  cannot  enjoy  the  sight  of  another's 
learning,  and  the  exposure  of  his  own  ig- 
norance. It  was  worth  something  to  see 
a  first-rate,  thoroughly  equipped  "  insecta- 
rian  "  at  work  and  to  hear  her  talk.  I  should 
have  been  proud  even  to  hold  one  of  her 
smaller  phials,  but  they  were  all  adjusted 
beyond  the  need,  or  even  the  comfortable 
possibility,  of  such   assistance.     There  was 


32         FOOTING   IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

nothing  for  it  but  to  play  the  looker-on  and 
listener.  In  that  part  I  hope  I  was  less  of 
a  failure. 

The  enthusiastic  pursuit  of  special  know- 
ledge, persisted  in  year  after  year,  is  a  phe- 
nomenon as  well  worth  study  as  the  song 
and  nesting  habits  of  a  thrush  or  a  sparrow; 
and  I  gladly  put  myself  to  school,  not  only 
this  forenoon,  but  as  often  as  I  found  the 
opportunity.  One  day  my  mentor  told  me 
that  she  hoped  she  had  discoverd  a  new 
flea  !  She  kept,  as  I  knew,  a  couple  of  pet 
deer-mice,  and  it  seemed  that  some  almost 
microscopic  fleas  had  left  them  for  a  bunch 
of  cotton  wherein  the  mice  were  accustomed 
to  roU  themselves  up  in  the  daytime.  These 
minute  creatures  the  entomologist  had 
pounced  upon,  clapped  into  a  bottle,  and 
sent  off  straightway  to  the  American  flea 
specialist,  who  lived  somewhere  in  Alabama. 
In  a  few  days  she  should  hear  from  him, 
and  perhaps,  if  the  species  were  undescribed, 
there  would  be  a  flea  named  in  her  honor.^ 

^  The  species  was  not  new.  A  Maine  collector  had  an- 
ticipated her,  I  believe.  Whether  his  name  was  given  to 
the  flea  I  did  not  learn  or  have  forgotten. 


AUTUMN  33 

Distinctions  of  that  nature  are  almost 
every-day  matters  with  her.  How  many 
species  already  bear  her  name  she  has  never 
told  me.  I  suspect  they  are  so  numerous 
and  so  frequent  that  she  herself  can  hardly 
keep  track  of  them.  Think  of  the  pleasure 
of  walking  about  the  earth  and  being  able 
to  say,  as  an  insect  chirps,  "  Listen  !  that 
is  one  of  my  species,  —  named  after  me, 
you  know."  Such  specific  honors,  I  say, 
are  common  in  her  case,  —  common  almost 
to  satiety.  But  to  have  a  genus  named  for 
her,  —  that  was  glory  of  a  different  rank, 
glory  that  can  never  fall  to  the  same  person 
but  once  ;  for  generic  names  are  unique. 
Once  given,  they  are  patented,  as  it  were. 
They  can  never  be  used  again  —  for  genera, 
that  is  —  in  any  branch  of  natural  science. 
To  our  Franconia  entomologist  this  honor 
came,  by  what  seemed  a  poetic  justice,  in 
the  Lepidoptera,  the  order  in  which  she  be- 
gan her  researches.  Hers  is  a  genus  of 
moths.  I  trust  they  are  not  of  the  kind  that 
*'  corrupt." 

Thinking  how  above  measure  I  should  be 
exalted  in  such  circumstances,  I  am  surprised 


34  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

that  she  wears  her  laurels  so  meekly.  Not 
that  she  affects  to  conceal  her  gratification  ; 
she  is  as  happy  over  her  genus,  perhaps,  as 
over  the  new  edition  de  luxe  of  her  most 
famous  story;  for  an  entomologist  may  be 
also  a  novelist,  if  she  has  a  mind  to  be,  as 
Charles  Lamb  would  have  said ;  but  she 
knows  how  to  carry  it  off  lightly.  She  and 
the  botanist  of  the  party,  my  "walking 
mate,"  who,  I  am  proud  to  say,  is  similarly 
distinguished,  often  laugh  together  about 
their  generic  namesakes  (his  is  of  the  large 
and  noble  Compositse  family)  ;  and  then, 
sometimes,  the  lady  will  turn  to  me. 

"It  is  too  bad  you  can  never  have  a 
genus,"  she  will  say  in  her  bantering  tone ; 
"  the  name  is  already  taken  up,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  indeed,  I  know  it,"  I  answer  her. 
An  older  member  of  the  family,  a  — th  cou- 
sin, carried  off  the  prize  many  years  ago, 
and  the  rest  of  us  are  left  to  get  on  as  best 
we  can,  without  the  hope  of  such  dignities. 
When  I  was  in  Florida  I  took  pains  to  see 
the  tree,  —  the  family  evergreen,  we  may 
call  it.  Though  it  is  said  to  have  an  ill 
smell,  it  is  handsome,  and  we  count  it  an 
honor. 


AUTUMN  35 

"  But  then,  perhaps  you  would  never  have 
had  a  genus  named  for  you,  anyhow,"  the 
entomologist  continues,  still  bent  upon  mis- 
chief. 

And  there  we  leave  the  matter.  Let  the 
shoemaker  stick  to  his  last.  Some  of  us 
were  not  born  to  shine  at  badinage,  or  as 
collectors  of  beetles.  For  myself,  in  this 
bright  September  weather  I  have  no  ambi- 
tions. It  is  enough,  I  think,  to  be  a  follower 
of  the  road,  breathing  the  breath  of  life  and 
seeing  the  beauty  of  the  world. 

In  the  afternoon  I  took  the  Landaff  Val- 
ley round,  down  the  village  street  nearly  to 
the  junction  of  Gale  Kiver  and  Ham  Branch, 
then  up  the  Ham  Branch  (or  Landaif)  Val- 
ley to  a  crossroad  on  the  left,  and  so  back 
to  the  road  from  the  Profile  Notch,  and  by 
that  home  again.  The  jaunt,  which  is  one 
of  our  Franconia  favorites,  is  peculiar  for 
being  substantially  level ;  with  no  more  up- 
hill and  downhill  than  would  be  included  in 
a  walk  of  the  same  distance  —  perhaps  six 
miles  —  almost  anywhere  in  southern  New 
England. 


36  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

The  first  thing  a  man  is  likely  to  notice 
as  he  passes  the  last  of  the  village  houses, 
and  finds  himself  skirting  the  bank  of  Ham 
Branch  (which  looks  to  be  nearly  or  quite 
as  full  as  the  river  into  which  it  empties  it- 
self), is  the  color  of  the  water.  Gale  River 
is  fresh  from  the  hills,  and  ripples  over  its 
stony  bed  as  clear  as  crystal.  The  branch, 
on  the  contrary,  has  been  flowing  for  some 
time  through  a  flat  meadowy  valley,  where 
it  has  taken  on  a  rich  earthy  hue,  to  which 
it  might  be  natural  to  apply  a  less  honorable 
sounding  word,  perhaps,  if  it  were  a  question 
of  some  neutral  stream,  in  whose  character 
and  reputation  I  felt  no  personal,  friendly 
interest. 

Just  as  I  came  to  it,  that  afternoon,  I  saw 
to  my  surprise  a  white  admiral  butterfly  sun- 
ning itself  upon  an  alder  leaf.  I  hope  the 
reader  knows  the  species,  —  Limenitis  Ar- 
themis,  sometimes  called  the  banded  purple, 
—  one  of  the  prettiest  and  showiest  of  New 
England  insects,  four  black  or  blackish 
wings  crossed  by  a  broad  white  band.  It 
was  much  out  of  season  now,  I  felt  sure, 
both  from  what   my  entomological  friends 


AUTUMN  37 

had  told  me,  and  from  my  own  recollections 
of  previous  years,  and  I  was  seized  with  a 
foolish  desire  to  capture  it  as  a  sort  of  tro- 
phy. It  lay  just  beyond  my  reach,  and  I 
disturbed  it,  m  hopes  it  would  settle  nearer 
the  ground.  Twice  it  disappointed  me. 
Then  I  threw  a  stick  toward  it,  aiming  not 
wisely  but  too  well,  and  this  time  startled  it 
so  badly  that  it  rose  straight  into  the  air, 
sailed  across  the  stream,  and  came  to  rest  far 
up  in  a  tall  elm.  "  You  were  never  cut  out 
for  a  collector  of  insects,"  I  said  to  myseK, 
recalling  my  experience  of  the  forenoon ; 
but  I  was  glad  to  have  seen  the  creature,  — 
the  first  one  for  several  years,  —  and  went 
on  my  way  as  happy  as  a  child  in  thinking 
of  it.  In  the  second  half  of  a  man's  century 
he  may  be  thankful  for  almost  anything 
that,  for  the  time  being,  lifts  twoscore  of 
years  off  his  back.  The  best  part  of  most 
of  us,  I  think,  is  the  boy  that  was  born  with 
us.     So  far  I  am  a  Wordsworthian  ;  — 

"  And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 

A  little  way  up  the  vaUey  we  come  to  an 
ancient  miU  and  a  bridge ;  a  new  bridge  it 


38  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

is  now,  but  I  remember  an  old  one,  and  a 
friglit  that  I  once  bad  upon  it.  Witb  a  fel- 
low itinerant  —  a  learned  man,  wbose  life 
was  valuable  —  I  stopped  here  to  rest  of  a 
summer  noon,  and  my  companion,  with  an 
eye  to  shady  comfort,  clambered  over  the 
edge  of  the  bridge  and  out  upon  a  joist 
which  projected  over  the  stream.  There  he 
sat  down  with  his  back  against  a  pillar  and 
his  legs  stretched  before  him  on  the  joist. 
He  has  a  theory,  concerning  which  I  have 
heard  him  discourse  more  than  once,  — 
something  in  his  own  attitude  suggesting 
the  theme,  —  that  when  a  man,  after  walk- 
ing, "  puts  his  feet  up,"  he  is  acting  not 
merely  upon  a  natural  impulse,  but  in  ac- 
cordance with  a  sound  physiological  princi- 
ple ;  and  in  accordance  with  that  principle 
he  was  acting  now,  as  well  as  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case  would  permit.  We 
chatted  awhile ;  then  he  fell  silent ;  and 
after  a  time  I  turned  my  head,  and  saw  him 
clean  gone  in  a  doze.  The  seat  was  barely 
wide  enough  to  hold  him.  What  if  he 
should  move  in  his  sleep,  or  start  up  sud- 
denly on  being  awakened?     I  looked  at  the 


AUTUMN  39 

rocks  below,  and  shivered.  I  dared  not  dis- 
turb him,  and  could  only  sit  in  a  kind  of 
stupid  terror  and  wait  for  him  to  open  his 
eyes.  Happily  his  nap  did  not  last  long, 
and  came  to  a  quiet  termination;  so  that 
the  cause  of  science  suffered  no  loss  that 
day  ;  but  I  can  never  go  by  the  place  with- 
out thinking  of  what  might  have  happened. 
Here,  likewise,  on  an  autumnal  forenoon, 
two  or  three  years  ago,  I  had  another  mem- 
orable experience ;  nothing  less  (nothing 
more,  the  reader  may  say)  than  the  song  of 
a  hermit  thrush.  It  was  in  the  season  after 
bluebirds  and  hermits  had  been  killed  in 
such  dreadful  numbers  (almost  exterminated, 
we  thought  then)  by  cold  and  snow  at  the 
South.  I  had  scarcely  seen  a  hermit  all  the 
year,  and  was  approaching  the  bridge,  of  a 
pleasant  late  September  morning,  when  I 
heard  a  thrush's  voice.  I  stopped  instantly. 
The  note  was  repeated ;  and  there  the  bird 
stood  in  a  low  roadside  tree ;  the  next  min- 
ute he  began  singing  in  a  kind  of  reminis- 
cential  half -voice,  —  the  soul  of  a  year's 
music  distilled  in  a  few  drops  of  sound,  — 
such  as  birds  of  many  kinds  so  frequently 


40         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

drop  into  in  the  fall.  That,  too,  I  am  sure 
to  remember  as  often  as  I  pass  this  way. 

In  truth,  all  my  Franconia  rambles  (I  am 
tempted  to  write  the  name  in  three  syllables, 
as  I  sometimes  speak  it,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  Fishin'  Jimmy  and  other  local  worth- 
ies), —  all  my  "  Francony  "  rambles,  I  say, 
are  by  this  time  full  of  these  miserly  delights. 
It  is  really  a  gain,  perhaps,  that  I  make  the 
round  of  them  but  once  a  year.  Some  things 
are  wisely  kept  choice. 

"  Therefore  are  feasts  so  solemn  and  so  rare." 

To  get  aU  the  goodness  out  of  a  piece  of 
country,  return  to  it  again  and  again,  till 
every  corner  of  it  is  alive  with  memories  ; 
but  do  not  see  it  too  often,  nor  make  your 
stay  in  it  too  long.  The  hermit  thrush's 
voice  is  all  the  sweeter  because  he  iS  a  her- 
mit. 

This  afternoon  I  do  not  cross  the  bridge, 
but  keep  to  the  valley  road,  which  soon  runs 
for  some  distance  along  the  edge  of  a  hack- 
matack swamp ;  full  of  graceful,  pencil- 
tipped,  feathery  trees,  with  here  and  there  a 
dead  one,  on  purpose  for  woodpeckers  and 


AUTUMN  41 

hawks.  A  hairy  woodpecker  is  on  one  of 
them  at  this  moment,  now  hammering  the 
trunk  with  his  powerful  beak  (hammer  and 
chisel  in  one),  now  lifting  up  his  voice  in  a 
way  to  be  heard  for  half  a  mile.  To  judge 
from  his  ordinary  tone  and  manner,  Dryo- 
hates  villosus  has  no  need  to  cultivate  deci- 
sion of  character.  Every  word  is  peremp- 
tory, and  every  action  speaks  of  energy  and 
a  mind  made  up. 

In  this  larch  swamp,  though  I  have  never 
really  explored  it,  I  have  seen,  first  and  last, 
a  good  many  things.  Here  grows  much  of 
the  pear-leaved  wiUow  (^Salix  halsamiferd), 
I  notice  a  few  bushes  even  now  as  I  pass, 
the  reddish  twigs  each  with  a  tuft  of  yellow- 
ing, red-stemmed  leaves  at  the  tip.  Here, 
one  June,  a  Tennessee  warbler  sang  to  me ; 
and  there  are  only  two  other  places  in  the 
world  in  which  I  have  been  thus  favored. 
Here,  —  a  little  farther  up  the  valley,  —  on 
a  rainy  September  forenoon,  I  once  sat  for 
an  hour  in  the  midst  of  as  pretty  a  flock  of 
birds  as  a  man  could  wish  to  see :  south-go- 
ing travelers  of  many  sorts,  whom  the  for- 
tunes   of   the    road    had    throv/n    together. 


42         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Here  they  were,  lying  by  for  a  day's  rest  in 
this  favorable  spot ;  flitting  to  and  fro, 
chirping,  singing,  feeding,  playfully  quarrel- 
ing, as  if  life,  even  in  rainy  weather  and  in 
migration  time,  were  all  a  pleasure  trip.  It 
was  a  sight  to  cure  low  spirits.  I  sat  on  the 
hay  just  within  the  open  side  of  a  barn 
which  stands  here  in  the  woods,  quite  by  it- 
self, and  watched  them  till  I  almost  felt  my- 
seK  of  their  company.  I  have  forgotten 
their  names,  though  I  listed  them  carefully 
enough,  beyond  a  doubt ;  but  it  will  be  long 
before  I  forget  my  delight  in  the  birds  them- 
selves. Ours  may  be  an  evil  world,  as  the 
pessimists  and  the  preachers  find  so  much 
comfort  in  maintaining,  but  there  is  one 
thing  to  be  said  in  its  favor :  its  happy  days 
are  the  longest  remembered.  The  pain  I 
suffered  years  ago  1  cannot  any  longer  make 
real  to  myself,  even  if  I  would,  but  the  joys 
of  that  time  are  still  almost  as  good  as  new, 
when  occasion  calls  them  up.  Some  of  them, 
indeed,  seem  to  have  sweetened  with  age. 
This  is  especially  the  case,  I  think,  with  sim- 
ple and  natural  pleasures ;  which  may  be 
considered  as  a  good  reason  why  every  man 


AUTUMN  43 

should  be,  if  he  can,  a  lover  of  nature,  —  a 
sympathizer,  that  is  to  say,  with  the  Hfe  of 
the  world  about  him.  The  less  artificial  our 
joys,  the  more  likelihood  of  their  staying  by 
us. 

Not  to  blink  at  the  truth,  nevertheless, 
I  must  add  a  circumstance  which,  till  this 
moment,  I  had  clean  forgotten.  I  was  still 
watching  the  birds,  with  perhaps  a  dozen 
species  in  sight  close  at  hand,  when  suddenly 
I  observed  a  something  come  over  them,  and 
on  the  instant  a  large  hawk  skimmed  the 
tops  of  the  trees.  In  one  second  every  bird 
was  gone,  —  vanished,  as  if  at  the  touch  of 
a  necromancer's  wand.  I  did  not  see  them 
fly ;  there  was  no  rush  of  wings ;  but  the 
place  was  empty ;  and  though  I  waited  for 
them,  they  did  not  reappear.  Two  or  three, 
indeed,  I  may  have  seen  afterward,  but  the 
flock  was  gone.  My  holiday,  at  all  events, 
or  that  part  of  it,  was  done,  —  shadowed  by 
a  hawk's  wing.  Undoubtedly  a  few  minutes 
of  safety  put  the  birds  all  in  comfortable 
spirits  again,  however  ;  and  anyhow,  it  bears 
out  my  theory  of  remembered  happiness,  that 
this  less  cheerful  part  of  the  story  had  so 


44  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

completely  passed  out  of  mind.  Memory, 
like  a  sundial,  Lad  marked  only  the  bright 
hour. 

Beyond  this  lonely  barn  the  soil  of  the 
valley  becomes  drier  and  sandier.  Here  are 
two  or  three  houses,  with  broad  hayfields 
about  them,  in  which  Hve  many  vesper  spar- 
rows. No  doubt  they  have  lived  here  longer 
than  any  of  their  present  human  neighbors. 
Even  now  they  flit  along  the  wayside  in  ad- 
vance of  the  foot-passenger,  running  a  space, 
after  their  manner,  and  anon  taking  wing  to 
alight  upon  a  fence  rail.  Their  year  is  done, 
but  they  linger  still  a  few  days,  out  of  love 
for  the  ancestral  fields,  or,  it  may  be,  in 
dread  of  the  long  journey,  from  which  some 
of  them  will  pretty  certainly  never  come 
back. 

All  the  way  up  the  road,  though  no  men- 
tion has  been  made  of  it,  my  eyes  have  been 
upon  the  low,  bright-colored  hills  beyond  the 
river,  —  sugar-maple  orchards  all  in  yellow 
and  red,  a  gorgeous  display,  —  or  upon  the 
mountains  in  front.  Kinsman  and  the  more 
distant  Moosilauke.  The  green  meadow  is 
a  good  place  in  which  to  look  for   marsh 


AUTUMN  45 

hawks,  —  as  well  as  of  great  use  as  a  fore- 
ground, —  and  the  hill  woods  beyond  are 
the  resort  of  pileated  woodpeckers.  I  have 
often  seen  and  heard  them  here,  but  there  is 
no  sign  of  them  to-day. 

Though  these  fine  birds  are  generally  de- 
scribed —  one  book  following  another,  after 
the  usual  fashion  —  as  frequenters  of  the 
wilderness,  and  though  it  is  true  that  they 
have  forsaken  the  more  thickly  settled  parts 
of  the  country,  I  think  I  have  never  once 
seen  them  in  the  depths  of  the  forest.  To 
the  best  of  my  recollection  none  of  our 
Franconia  men  have  ever  reported  them 
from  Mount  Lafayette  or  from  the  Lonesome 
Lake  region.  On  the  other  hand,  we  meet 
them  with  greater  or  less  regularity  in  the 
more  open  valley  woods,  often  directly  upon 
the  roadside ;  not  only  in  the  Landaff  Val- 
ley, but  on  the  outskirts  of  the  village  toward 
Littleton  and  on  the  Bethlehem  road.  In 
this  latter  place  I  remember  seeing  a  fellow 
prancing  about  the  trunk  of  a  small  orchard 
tree  within  twenty  rods  of  a  house  ;  and  not 
so  very  infrequently,  especially  in  the  rum- 
cherry  season,  they  make  their  appearance 


46         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

in  tlie  immediate  vicinity  of  tlie  hotel ;  foi 
they,  like  some  of  their  relatives,  notably  the 
sapsucker,  are  true  cherry-birds.  In  Ver- 
mont, too,  I  have  found  their  freslily  cut 
"  peck-holes  "  on  the  very  skirts  of  the  vil- 
lage. And  at  the  South,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  observe,  the  story  is  the  same. 
About  Natural  Bridge,  Virginia,  for  exam- 
ple, a  loosely  settled  country,  with  plenty  of 
woodland  but  no  extensive  forests,  the  birds 
were  constantly  in  evidence.  In  short,  un- 
tamable as  they  look,  and  little  as  they  may 
like  a  town,  they  seem  to  find  themselves 
best  off,  as  birds  in  general  do,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  civilization.  They  have  something 
of  Thoreau's  mind,  we  may  say  :  lovers  of 
the  wild,  they  are  yet  not  quite  at  home  in 
the  wilderness,  and  prefer  the  woodman's 
path  to  the  logger's. 

Not  far  ahead,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
way,  —  to  return  to  the  Landaff  Valley,  — 
is  a  red  maple  grove,  more  briUiant  even 
than  the  sugar  orchards.  It  ripens  its  leaves 
earlier  than  they,  as  we  have  always  noticed, 
and  is  already  past  the  acme  of  its  annual 
splendor ;  so  that  some  of  the  trees  have  a 


AUTUMN  47 

peculiarly  delicate  and  lovely  purplish  tint, 
a  real  bloom,  never  seen,  1  think,  except  on 
the  red  maple,  and  there  only  after  the 
leaves  have  begun  to  curl  and  fade.  Oppo- 
site it  (after  whistling  in  vain  for  a  dog  with 
whom  in  years  past,  I  have  been  accustomed 
to  be  friendly  at  one  of  the  houses  —  he 
must  be  dead,  or  gone,  or  grown  reserved 
with  age),  I  take  the  crossroad  before  men- 
tioned ;  and  now,  face  to  face  with  Lafayette, 
I  stop  under  a  favorite  pine  tree  to  enjoy  the 
prospect  and  the  stillness :  no  sound  but  the 
chirping  of  crickets,  the  peeping  of  hylas, 
and  the  hardly  less  musical  hammering  of  a 
distant  carpenter. 

Along  the  wayside  are  many  gray  birches 
(of  the  kind  called  white  birches  in  Massa- 
chusetts, the  kind  from  which  Yankee  school- 
boys snatch  a  fearful  joy  by  "  swinging  off  " 
their  tops),  the  only  ones  I  remember  about 
Franconia  ;  for  which  reason  I  sometimes 
call  the  road  Gray  Birch  Road;  and  just 
beyond  them  I  stop  again.  Here  is  a  bit  for 
a  painter  :  a  lovely  vista,  such  as  makes  a 
man  wish  for  a  brush  and  the  skill  to  use  it. 
The   road   dips   into  a  little  hollow,  turns 


48  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

gently,  and  passes  out  of  sight  witliin  tlie 
shadow  of  a  wood.  And  above  the  over- 
arching trees  rises  the  pyramidal  mass  of 
Mount  Cannon,  its  middle  part  set  with  dark 
evergreens,  which  are  flanked  on  either  side 
with  broad  patches  of  light  yellow,  —  poplars 
or  birches.  The  sun  is  getting  down,  and 
its  level  rays  flood  the  whole  mountain  forest 
with  hght. 

Into  the  shadow  I  go,  following  the  road, 
and  after  a  turn  or  two  come  out  at  a  small 
clearing  and  a  house.  "  Rocky  Farm,"  we 
might  name  it ;  for  the  land  is  sprinkled 
over  with  huge  boulders,  as  if  giants  had 
been  at  play  here.  Whoever  settled  the 
place  first  must  have  chosen  the  site  for  its 
outlook  rather  than  for  any  hope  of  its  fer- 
tility. I  sit  down  on  one  of  the  stones  and 
take  my  fill  of  the  mountain  glory :  Garfield, 
Lafayette,  Cannon,  Kinsman,  Moosilauke,  — 
a  grand  horizonf  ul.  Cannon  is  almost  within 
reach  of  the  hand,  as  it  looks ;  but  the  arm 
might  need  to  be  two  miles  long. 

Just  here  the  road  mkkes  a  sudden  bend, 
passes  again  into  light  woods,  and  presently 
emerges  upon  a  little  knoll  overlooking  the 


AUTUMN  49 

upper  Franconia  meadows.  This  is  the 
noblest  prospect  of  the  afternoon,  and  late 
as  the  hour  is  growing  I  must  lean  against 
the  fence  rail  —  for  there  is  a  house  at  this 
point  also  —  and  gaze  upon  it.  The  green 
meadow  is  spread  at  my  feet,  flaming  maple 
woods  range  themselves  beyond  it,  and  be- 
hind them,  close  at  hand,  loom  the  sombre 
mountains,  I  had  forgotten  that  this  part 
of  the  road  was  so  "viewly,"  to  borrow  a 
local  word,  and  am  thankful  to  have  reached 
it  at  so  favorable  a  moment.  Now  the 
shadow  of  the  low  hills  at  my  back  over- 
spreads the  valley,  while  the  upper  world 
beyond  is  aglow  with  light  and  color. 

It  is  five  o'clock,  and  I  must  be  getting 
homeward.  Down  at  the  valley  level  the 
evening  chill  strikes  me,  after  the  excep- 
tional warmth  of  the  day,  and  by  the  time 
Tucker  Brook  is  crossed  the  bare  summit  of 
Lafayette  is  of  a  deep  rosy  purple,  —  the 
rest  of  the  world  sunless.  The  day  is  over, 
and  the  remaining  miles  are  taken  somewhat 
hurriedly,  although  I  stop  below  the  Profile 
House  farm  to  look  for  a  fresh  bunch  of 
dumb   foxglove,  —  not  easy  to  find  in  the 


50  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

open  at  this  late  date,  many  as  the  plants 
are,  —  and  at  one  or  two  other  places  to 
pluck  a  tempting  maple  twig.  Sated  with 
the  magnificence  of  autumnal  forests,  hill 
after  hill  splashed  with  color,  the  eye  loves 
to  withdraw  itself  now  and  then  to  rest  upon 
the  perfection  of  a  blossom  or  a  leaf.  Wag- 
onloads  of  tourists  come  down  the  Notch 
road,  the  usual  nightly  procession,  some  si- 
lent, some  boisterously  .singing.  Among  the 
most  distressing  of  all  the  noises  that  human 
beings  make  is  this  vulgar  shouting  of  "  sa- 
cred music  "  along  the  public  highway.  This 
time  the  hymn  is  Jerusalem  the  Golden, 
after  the  upper  notes  of  which  an  unhappy 
female  voice  is  vainly  reaching,  like  a  boy 
who  has  lost  his  wind  in  shinning  up  a  tree, 
and  with  his  last  gasping  effort  still  finds 
the  lowest  branch  just  beyond  the  clutch  of 
his  fingers. 

"I  know  not,  oh,  I  know  not," 

I  hear  her  shriek,  and  then  a  lucky  turn  in 
the  road  takes  her  out  of  hearing,  and  I  lis- 
ten again  to  the  still  small  voice  of  the  brook, 
which,  whether  it  "  knows  "  or  not,  has  the 
grace  to  make  no  fuss  about  it. 


AUTUMN  51 

Let  that  one  human  discord  be  forgotten. 
It  had  been  a  glorious  day ;  few  lovelier 
were  ever  made :  a  day  without  a  cloud  (lit- 
erally), and  almost  without  a  breath ;  a  day 
to  walk,  and  a  day  to  sit  still ;  a  long  feast 
of  beauty ;  and  withal,  it  had  for  me  a  per- 
fect conclusion,  as  if  Nature  herself  were  set- 
ting a  benediction  upon  the  hours.  As  I 
neared  the  end  of  my  jaunt,  the  hotel  already 
in  sight,  Venus  in  all  her  splendor  hung  low 
in  the  west,  the  full  moon  was  showing  its 
rim  above  the  trees  in  the  east,  and  at  the 
same  moment  a  vesper  sparrow  somewhere 
in  the  darkening  fields  broke  out  with  its 
evening  song.  Five  or  six  times  it  sang, 
and  then  fell  silent.  It  was  enough.  The 
beauty  of  the  day  was  complete. 

The  next  day,  October  1,  was  no  less  de- 
lightful :  mild,  stiU,  and  cloudless ;  so  that 
it  was  pleasant  to  lounge  upon  the  piazza  in 
the  early  morning,  looking  at  Lafayette,  — 
good  business  of  itself,  —  and  listening  to 
the  warble  of  a  bluebird,  the  soft  chips  of 
myrtle  warblers,  or  the  distant  gobbling  of  a 
turkey  down  at  one  of  the  river  farms  ;  while 
now  and  then  a  farmer  drove  past  from  his 


52  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

morning  errand  at  tlie  creamery,  with  one 
or  two  tall  milk-cans  standing  behind  him  in 
the  open,  one-seated  carriage.  If  you  see  a 
man  on  foot  as  far  from  the  village  as  this, 
you  may  set  him  down,  in  ornithological  lan- 
guage, as  a  summer  resident  or  a  transient 
visitor.  Franconians,  to  the  manner  born, 
are  otherwise  minded,  and  wiU  "  hitch  up  " 
for  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  As  good  John  Bun- 
yan  said,  "  This  is  a  valley  that  nobody  walks 
in,  but  those  that  love  a  pilgrim's  life." 

As  I  take  the  Notch  road  after  breakfast 
the  temperature  is  summer-like,  and  the  foli- 
age, I  think,  must  have  reached  its  brightest. 
Above  the  Profile  House  farm,  on  the  edge 
of  the  golf  links,  where  the  whole  Franconia 
Valley  lies  exposed,  I  seat  myself  on  the 
wall,  inside  a  natural  hedge  that  borders 
the  highway,  to  admire  the  scene :  a  long 
verdant  meadow,  flanked  by  low  hills  covered, 
mile  after  mile,  with  vivid  reds  and  yellows  ; 
splendor  beyond  words  ;  a  pageant  glorious 
to  behold,  but  happily  of  brief  duration. 
Human  senses  would  weary  of  it,  though  the 
eye  loves  color  as  the  palate  loves  spices  and 
sweets,  or,  by  force  of  looking  at  it,  would 
lose  all  delicacy  of  perception  and  taste. 


^   AUTUMN  63 

Even  yet  the  world,  viewed  in  broad  spaces, 
wears  a  clean,  fresh  aspect ;  but  near  at  hand 
the  herbage  and  shrubbery  are  all  in  the  sere 
and  yellow  leaf.  So  I  am  saying  to  myseK 
when  I  start  at  the  sound  of  a  Hudsonian 
chickadee's  nasal  voice  speaking  straight  into 
my  ear.  The  saucy  chit  has  dropped  into 
the  low  poplar  sapling  over  my  head,  and 
surprised  at  what  he  discovers  underneath, 
lets  fall  a  hasty  Sick-a-day-day.  His  dress, 
like  his  voice,  compares  unfavorably  with 
that  of  his  cousin,  our  familiar  blackcap.  In 
fact,  I  might  say  of  him,  with  his  dirty  brown 
headdress,  what  I  was  thinking  of  the  road- 
side vegetation  :  he  looks  dingy,  out  of  con- 
dition, frayed,  discolored,  belated,  frost-bit- 
ten. But  I  am  delighted  to  see  him,  —  for 
the  first  time  at  any  such  level  as  this,  — 
and  thank  my  stars  that  I  sat  down  to  rest 
and  cool  off  on  this  hard  but  convenient 
boulder. 

A  chipmunk  thinks  I  have  sat  here  long 
enough,  and  feels  no  bashfulness  about  tell- 
ing me  so.  Why  should  he  ?  Frankness  is 
esteemed  a  point  of  good  manners  in  all  nat- 
ural society.     A  man  shoots  down  the  hill 


54  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

behind  me  on  a  bicycle,  coasting  like  the 
wind,  and  another,  driving  up,  salutes  him 
by  name,  and  then  turns  to  cry  after  him  in 
a  ringing  voice,  "How  he  ye?"  The  em- 
phatic verb  bespeaks  a  real  solicitude  on  the 
questioner's  part ;  but  he  is  half  a  mile  too 
late  ;  he  might  as  well  have  shouted  to  the 
man  in  the  moon.  Presently  two  men  in  a 
buggy  come  up  the  road,  talking  in  breezy 
up-country  fashion  about  some  one  whose 
name  they  use  freely,  —  a  name  well  known 
hereabout,  —  and  with  whom  they  appear 
to   have   business    relations.     "  He  got  up 

this  morning  like  a thousand  of 

brick,"  one  of  them  says.  A  disagreeable 
person  to  work  for,  I  should  suppose.  And 
all  the  while  a  child  behind  the  hedge  is  tak- 
ing notes.  Queer  things  we  could  print,  if 
it  were  allowable  to  report  verbatim. 

When  this  free-spoken  pair  is  far  enough 
in  the  lead  I  go  back  to  the  road  again, 
traveling  slowly  and  keeping  to  the  shady 
side,  with  my  coat  on  my  arm.  As  the  climb 
grows  steeper  the  weather  grows  more  and 
more  like  August ;  and  hark  I  a  cicada  is 
shrilling  in  one  of  the  forest  trees,  —  a  long- 


AUTUMN  65 

drawn,  heat-laden,  midsummer  cry.  I  will 
tell  the  entomologist  about  it,  I  promise  my- 
self. The  circumstance  must  be  very  miu- 
sual,  and  cannot  fail  to  interest  her.  (But 
she  takes  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is 
hard  to  bring  news  to  a  specialist.) 

So  I  go  on,  up  Hardscrabble  and  Little 
Hardscrabble,  stopping  like  a  short-winded 
horse  at  every  water-bar,  and  thanldul  for 
every  bird-note  that  calls  me  to  a  halt  be- 
tween times.  An  ornithological  preoccupa- 
tion is  a  capital  resource  when  the  road  is 
getting  the  better  of  you.  The  brook  like- 
wise must  be  minded,  and  some  of  the  more 
memorable  of  the  wayside  trees.  A  moun- 
tain road  has  one  decided  and  inalienable  ad- 
vantage, I  remark  inwardly:  the  most  per- 
versely opinionated  highway  surveyor  in  the 
world  cannot  straighten  it.  How  fast  the 
leaves  are  falling,  though  the  air  scarcely 
stirs  among  them  !  In  some  places  I  walk 
through  a  real  shower  of  gold.  Theirs  is  an 
easy  death.  And  how  many  times  I  have 
been  up  and  down  this  road  !  Summer  and 
autumn  I  have  traveled  it.  And  in  what 
pleasant  company !     Now  I  am  alone ;  but 


56  FOOTING  IT   IN  FRANCONIA 

then,  the  solitude  itself  is  an  excellent  com- 
panionship. We  are  having  a  pretty  good 
time  of  it,  I  think,  —  the  trees,  the  brook, 
the  winding  road,  the  yellow  birch  leaves, 
and  the  human  pilgrim,  who  feels  himself 
one  with  them  all.  1  hope  they  would  not 
disown  a  poor  relation. 

It  is  ten  o'clock.  Slowly  as  I  have  come, 
not  a  wagonload  of  tourists  has  caught  up 
with  me  ;  and  at  the  Bald  Mountain  path  I 
leave  the  highway,  having  a  sudden  notion 
to  go  to  Echo  Lake  by  the  way  of  Artist's 
Bluff,  so  called,  a  rocky  cliff  that  rises 
abruptly  from  the  lower  end  of  the  lake. 
The  trail  conducts  me  through  a  veritable 
fernery,  one  long  slope  being  thickly  set 
with  perfectly  fresh  shield-ferns,  —  Aspi- 
dium  sijinulosum  and  perhaps  A.  clilatatum, 
though  I  do  not  concern  myseK  to  be  sure  of 
it.  From  the  bluff  the  lake  is  at  my  feet, 
but  what  mostly  fills  my  eye  is  the  woods  on 
the  lower  side  of  Mount  Cannon.  There  is 
no  language  to  express  the  kind  of  pleasure 
I  take  in  them  :  so  soft,  so  bright,  so  various 
in  their  hues,  —  dark  green,  light  green, 
russet,  yellow,  red,  —  all  drowned  in  sun- 


AUTUMN  57 

shine,  yet  veiled  perceptibly  with  haze  even 
at  this  slight  distance.  If  there  is  anything 
in  nature  more  exquisitely,  ravisliingly  beauti- 
ful than  an  old  mountainside  forest  looked  at 
from  above,  I  do  not  know  where  to  find  it. 

Down  at  the  lakeside  there  is  beauty  of 
another  kind :  the  level  blue  water,  the  clean 
gray  shallows  about  its  margin,  the  reflec- 
tions of  bright  mountains  —  Eagle  Cliff  and 
Mount  Cannon  —  in  its  face,  and  soaring 
into  the  sky,  on  either  side  and  in  front,  the 
mountains  themselves.  And  how  softly  the 
ground  is  matted  under  the  shrubbery  and 
trees :  twin-flower,  partridge  berry,  creeping 
snowberry,  gold-thread,  oxalis,  dwarf  cornel, 
checkerberry,  trailing  arbutus  !  The  very 
names  ought  to  be  a  means  of  grace  to  the 
pen  that  writes  them. 

White-throats  and  a  single  winter  wren 
scold  at  me  behind  my  back  as  I  sit  on  a 
spruce  log,  but  for  some  reason  there  are 
few  birds  here  to-day.  The  fact  is  excep- 
tional. As  a  rule,  I  have  found  the  bushes 
populous,  and  once,  I  remember,  not  many 
days  later  than  this,  there  were  fox  sparrows 
with  the  rest.     I  am  hoping  some  tune  to 


58  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

find  a  stray  phalarope  swimming  in  the  lake. 
That  would  be  a  sight  worth  seeing.  The 
lake  itself  is  always  here,  at  any  rate,  espe- 
cially now  that  the  summer  people  are  gone  ; 
and  if  the  wind  is  right  and  the  sun  out,  so 
that  a  man  can  sit  still  with  comfort  (to-day 
my  coat  is  superfluous),  the  absence  of  other 
things  does  not  greatly  matter. 

This  clean  waterside  must  have  many 
four-footed  visitors,  particularly  in  the  twi- 
light and  after  dark.  Deer  and  bears  are 
common  inhabitants  of  the  mountain  woods ; 
but  for  my  eyes  there  is  nothing  but  squir- 
rels, with  once  in  a  long  while  a  piece  of 
wilder  game.  Twice  only,  in  Franconia, 
have  I  come  within  sight  of  a  fox.  Once  I 
was  alone,  in  the  wood-road  to  Sinclair's 
Mills.  I  rounded  a  curve,  and  there  the 
fellow  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  way,  smell- 
ing at  something  in  the  rut.  After  a  bit 
(my  glass  had  covered  him  instantly)  he 
raised  his  head  and  looked  down  the  road 
in  a  direction  opposite  to  mine.  Then  he 
turned,  saw  me,  started  slightly,  stood  quite 
still  for  a  fraction  of  a  minute  (I  wondered 
why),  and  vanished  in  the  woods,  his  white 


AUTUMN  59 

brush  waving  me  farewell.  He  was  gone  so 
instantaneously  that  it  was  hard  to  believe 
he  had  really  been  there. 

That  was  a  pretty  good  look  (at  a  fox), 
but  far  less  satisfying  than  the  other  of  my 
Franconia  experiences.  With  two  friends 
I  had  come  down  through  the  forest  from 
the  Notch  railroad  by  a  rather  blind  loggers' 
trail,  heading  for  a  pair  of  abandoned  farms, 
grassy  fields  in  which  it  is  needful  to  give 
heed  to  one's  steps  for  fear  of  bear-traps. 
As  we  emerged  into  the  first  clearing  a  fox 
was  not  more  than  five  or  six  rods  before  us, 
feeding  in  the  grass.  Her  eyes  were  on  her 
work,  the  wind  was  in  our  favor,  and  not- 
withstanding two  of  us  were  almost  wholly 
exposed,  we  stood  there  on  the  edge  of  the 
forest  for  the  better  part  of  half  an  hour, 
glasses  up,  passing  comments  upon  her  be- 
havior. Evidently  she  was  lunching  upon 
insects,  —  grasshoppers  or  crickets,  I  sup- 
pose, —  and  so  taken  up  was  she  with  this 
agreeable  employment  that  she  walked  di- 
rectly toward  us  and  passed  within  ten  yards 
of  our  position,  stopping  every  few  steps  for 
a  fresh  capture.     The  sunlight,  which  shone 


60         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

squarely  in  lier  face,  seemed  to  affect  her 
unpleasantly ;  at  all  events  she  bhnked  a 
good  deal.  Her  manner  of  stepping  about, 
her  motions  in  catching  her  prey,  —  driving 
her  nose  deep  into  the  grass  and  pushing  it 
home,  —  and  in  short  her  whole  behavior, 
were  more  catlike  than  doglike,  or  so  we  all 
thought.  Plainly  she  had  no  idea  of  ab- 
breviating her  repast,  nor  did  she  betray 
the  slightest  grain  of  suspiciousness  or  wari- 
ness, never  once  casting  an  eye  about  in 
search  of  possible  enemies.  A  dog  in  his 
own  dooryard  could  not  have  seemed  less 
apprehensive  of  danger.  As  often  as  she  ap- 
proached the  surrounding  wood  she  turned 
and  hunted  back  across  the  field.  We 
might  have  played  the  spy  upon  her  inde- 
finitely ;  but  it  was  always  the  same  thing 
over  again,  and  by  and  by,  when  she  passed 
for  a  little  out  of  sight  behind  a  tuft  of 
bushes,  we  followed,  careless  of  the  result, 
and,  as  it  seemed,  got  into  her  wind.  She 
started  on  the  instant,  ran  gracefully  up  a 
little  incline,  still  in  the  grass  land,  turned 
for  the  first  time  to  look  at  us,  and  disap- 
peared in  the  forest.     A  pretty  creature  she 


AUTUMN  61 

surely  was,  and  from  all  we  saw  of  lier  she 
might  have  been  accounted  a  very  useful 
farm-hand;  but  perhaps,  as  farmers  some- 
times say  of  unprofitable  cattle,  she  would 
soon  have  "  eaten  her  head  off"  in  the  poul- 
try yard.  She  was  not  fearless,  —  like  a 
woodchuck  that  once  walked  up  to  me  and 
smelled  of  my  boot,  as  I  stood  still  in  the 
road  near  the  Crawford  House,  —  but  simply 
off  her  guard  ;  and  our  finding  her  in  such 
a  mood  was  simply  a  bit  of  good  luck. 
Some  day,  possibly,  we  shall  catch  a  weasel 
asleep. 

In  a  vacation  season,  like  our  annual  fort- 
night in  New  Hampshire,  there  is  no  pre- 
dicting which  jaunt,  if  any,  will  turn  out 
superior  to  all  the  rest.  It  may  be  a  longer 
and  comparatively  newer  one  (although  in 
Franconia  we  find  few  new  ones  now,  partly 
because  we  no  longer  seek  them  —  the  old  is 
better,  we  are  apt  to  say  when  any  innovation 
is  suggested)  ;  or,  thanks  to  something  in 
the  day  or  something  in  the  mood,  it  may 
be  one  of  the  shortest  and  most  familiar. 
And  when  it  is  over,  there  may  be  a  sweet- 
ness in  the  memory,  but  little  to  talk  about ; 


62  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

little  "  incident,"  as  editors  say,  little  that 
goes  naturally  into  a  notebook.  In  other 
words,  the  best  walk,  for  us,  is  the  one  in 
which  we  are  happiest,  the  one  in  which  we 
fed  the  most,  not  of  necessity  the  one  in 
which  we  see  the  most ;  or,  to  put  it  differ- 
ently still,  the  one  in  which  we  do  see  the 
most,  but  with 

"  that  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude." 

Whatever  we  may  call  ourselves  at  home, 
among  the  mountains  we  are  lovers  of  plea- 
sure. Our  day's  work  is  to  be  happy.  We 
take  our  text  from  the  good  Longfellow  as 
theologians  take  theirs  from  Scripture :  — 

"  Enjoyment,  and  not  sorrow,  is  our  destined  end." 

We  are  not  anxious  to  learn  anything ;  our 
thoughts  run  not  upon  wisdom ;  if  we  take 
note  of  a  plant  or  a  bird,  it  is  rather  for  the 
fun  of  it  than  for  any  scholarly  purpose.  We 
are  boys  out  of  school.  I  speak  of  myself 
and  of  the  man  I  have  called  my  walking 
mate.  The  two  collectors  of  insects,  of 
course,  are  more  serious-minded.  "  No  day 
without  a  beetle,"  is  their  motto,  and  their 
absorption,  even  in  Franconia,  is  in   adding 


AUTUMN  63 

to  the  world's  stock  of  knowledge.  Let 
them  be  respected  accordingly.  Our  creed 
is  more  frankly  hedonistic ;  and  their  virtue 

—  I  am  free  to  confess  it  —  shines  the 
brighter  for  the  contrast. 

This  year,  nevertheless,  old  Franconia 
had  for  us,  also,  one  most  welcome  novelty, 
the  story  of  which  I  have  kept,  like  the  good 
wine,  —  a  pretty  small  glassful,  I  am  aware, 

—  for  the  end  of  the  feast.  I  had  never 
enjoyed  the  old  things  better.  Eight  or 
nine  years  ago,  writing  —  in  this  magazine  ^ 

—  of  June  in  Franconia,  I  expressed  a  fear 
that  our  dehght  in  the  beauty  of  nature 
might  grow  to  be  less  keenly  felt  with  ad- 
vancing age;  that  we  might  ultimately  be 
driven  to  a  more  scientific  use  of  the  out- 
ward world,  putting  the  exercise  of  curiosity, 
what  we  call  somewhat  loftily  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge,  in  the  place  of  rapturous  con- 
templation. So  it  may  yet  fall  out,  to  be 
sure,  since  age  is  still  advancing,  but  as  far 
as  present  indications  go,  nothing  of  the  sort 
seems  at  all  imminent.  I  begin  to  believe, 
in  fact,  that  things  will  turn  the  other  way ; 

1  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 


64  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

that  curiosity  will  rather  lose  its  edge,  and 
the  power  of  beauty  strike  deeper  and 
deeper  home.  So  may  it  be !  Then  we  shall 
not  be  dead  while  we  live.  Sure  I  am  that 
the  glory  of  mountains,  the  splendor  of  au- 
tumnal forests,  the  sweetness  of  valley  pro- 
spects, were  never  more  rapturously  felt  by 
me  than  during  the  season  just  ended.  And 
still,  as  I  started  just  now  to  say,  I  had  spe- 
cial joy  this  year  in  a  new  specimen,  an  addi- 
tional bird  for  my  memory  and  notebook. 

The  forenoon  of  September  26,  my  fourth 
day,  I  spent  on  Garnet  Hill.  The  grand 
circuit  of  that  hill  is  one  of  the  best  esteemed 
of  our  longer  expeditions.  Formerly  we  did 
it  always  between  breakfast  and  dinner,  hav- 
ing to  speed  the  pace  a  little  uncomfortably 
for  the  last  four  or  five  miles  ;  but  times 
have  begun  to  alter  with  us,  or  perhaps  we 
have  profited  by  experience  ;  for  the  last  few 
years,  at  any  rate,  we  have  made  the  trip  an 
aU-day  affair,  dining  on  Sunset  HiU,  and  loi- 
tering down  through  the  Landaff  VaUey  — 
with  a  side  excursion,  it  may  be,  to  fill  up 
the  hours  —  in  the  afternoon.  This  trip, 
being,  as  I  say,  one  of  those  we  most  set  by. 


AUTUMN  65 

I  was  determined  to  hold  in  reserve  against 
the  arrival  of  my  fellow  foot-traveler  ;  but 
there  is  also  a  pleasant  shorter  course,  not 
round  the  hill,  but,  so  to  speak,  over  one 
side  of  it :  out  by  the  way  of  what  I  call 
High  Bridge  Road  (never  having  heard  any 
name  for  it),  and  back  by  the  road  —  hardly 
more  than  a  lane  for  much  of  its  length  — 
which  traverses  the  hill  diagonally  on  its 
noi*theastern  slope,  and  joins  the  regular  Su- 
gar Hill  highway  a  little  below  the  Franconia 
Inn. 

I  left  the  Littleton  road  for  the  road 
to  the  Streeter  neighborhood,  crossed  Gale 
River  by  a  bridge  pitched  with  much  labor 
at  a  great  height  above  it  (a  good  indication 
of  the  swelhng  to  which  moimtain  streams 
are  subject),  passed  two  or  three  retired  val- 
ley farms  (where  were  eight  or  ten  sleek 
young  calves,  one  of  which,  rather  to  my  sur- 
prise, ate  from  my  hand  a  sprig  of  mint  as 
if  she  liked  the  savor  of  it),  and  then  began 
a  long,  steep  climb.  For  much  of  the  dis- 
tance the  road  —  narrow  and  very  little  trav- 
eled —  is  lined  with  dense  alder  and  willow 
thickets,  excellent  cover  for  birds.     It  was 


66  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

partly  witli  this  place  in  my  eye  that  I  Lad 
chosen  my  route,  remembering  an  hour  of 
much  interest  here  some  years  ago  with  a 
large  flock  of  migrants.  To-day,  as  it  hap- 
pened, the  bushes  were  comparatively  bird- 
less.  White-throats  and  snowbirds  were 
present,  of  course,  and  ruby-crowned  king- 
lets, with  a  solitary  vireo  or  two,  but  nothing 
out  of  the  ordinary.  The  prospect,  however, 
without  being  magnificent  or  —  for  Franco- 
nia  —  extensive,  was  full  of  attractiveness. 
Gale  River  hastening  through  a  gorge  over- 
hung with  forest,  directly  on  my  right, 
Streeter  Pond  farther  away  (two  deer  had 
been  shot  beside  it  that  morning,  as  I  learned 
before  night,  —  news  of  that  degree  of  im- 
portance travels  fast),  and  the  gay-colored 
hills  toward  Littleton  and  Bethlehem, — 
maple  grove  on  maple  grove,  with  all  their 
banners  flymg,  —  these  made  a  delightsome 
panorama,  shifting  with  every  twist  in  the 
road  and  with  every  rod  of  the  ascent ;  so 
that  1  had  excuse  more  than  sufficient  for 
continually  stopping  to  breathe  and  face 
about.  In  one  place  I  remarked  a  goodly 
bed  of  coltsfoot  leaves,  noticeable  for  their 


AUTUMN  67 

angular  shape  as  well  as  for  their  peculiar 
shade  of  green.  I  wished  for  a  blossom. 
If  the  dandelion  sometimes  anticipates  the 
season,  why  not  the  coltsfoot  ?  But  I  found 
no  sign  of  flower  or  bud.  Probably  the 
plant  is  of  a  less  impatient  habit ;  but  I  have 
seen  it  so  seldom  that  all  my  ideas  about  it 
are  no  better  than  guesswork.  Along  the 
wayside  was  maiden-hair  fern,  also,  which  I 
do  not  come  upon  any  too  often  in  this 
mountain  country. 

Midway  of  the  hill  stands  a  solitary  house, 
where  I  found  my  approach  spied  upon 
through  a  crack  between  the  curtain  and  the 
sash  of  what  seemed  to  be  a  parlor  window ; 
a  flattering  attention  which,  after  the  man- 
ner of  high  public  functionaries,  I  took  as  a 
tribute  not  to  myself,  but  to  the  role  I  was 
playing.  No  doubt  travelers  on  foot  are 
rare  on  that  difficult,  out-of-the-way  road, 
and  the  walker  rather  than  the  man  was 
what  filled  my  lady's  eye  ;  unless,  as  may 
easily  have  been  true,  she  was  expecting  to 
see  a  peddler's  pack.  At  this  point  the 
road  crooks  a  sharp  elbow,  and  henceforth 
passes    through   cultivated    country,  —  or- 


68         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

chard s  and  ploughed  land,  grass  fields  and 
pasturage;  stiU  without  houses,  however, 
and  having  a  pleasant  natural  hedgerow  of 
trees  and  shrubbery.  In  one  of  the  orchards 
was  a  great  congregation  of  sparrows  and 
myrtle  warblers,  with  sapsuckers,  flickers, 
downy  woodpeckers,  solitary  vireos,  and  I 
forget  what  else,  though  I  sat  on  the  wall 
for  some  time  refreshing  myseK  with  their 
cheerful  society.  I  agreed  with  them  that 
life  was  stiU  a  good  thing. 

Then  came  my  novelty.  I  was  but  a  lit- 
tle way  past  this  aviary  of  an  apple  orchard 
when  I  approached  a  pile  of  brush,  —  dry 
branches  which  had  been  heaped  against  the 
roadside  bank  some  years  ago,  and  up 
through  which  bushes  and  weeds  were  grow- 
ing. My  eyes  sought  it  instinctively,  and 
at  the  same  moment  a  bird  moved  inside. 
A  sparrow,  alone  ;  a  sparrow,  and  a  new 
one  !  "  A  Lincoln  finch  !  "  I  thought ;  and 
just  then  the  creature  turned,  and  I  saw  his 
forward  parts :  a  streaked  breast  with  a 
bright,  well-defined  buff  band  across  it,  as  if 
the  streaks  had  been  marked  in  first  and 
then  a  wash  of  yellowish  had  been  laid  on 


AUTUMN  69 

over  them.  Yes,  a  Lincoln  finch  !  He  was 
out  of  sight  almost  before  I  saw  him,  how- 
ever, and  after  a  bit  of  feverish  waiting  I 
squeaked.  He  did  not  come  up  to  look  at 
me,  as  I  hoped  he  would  do,  but  the  sudden 
noise  startled  him,  and  he  moved  slightly, 
enough  so  that  my  eye  again  found  him. 
This  time,  also,  I  saw  his  head  and  his 
breast,  and  then  he  was  lost  again.  Again 
I  waited.  Then  I  squeaked,  waited,  and 
squeaked  again,  louder  and  longer  than  be- 
fore. No  answer,  and  no  sign  of  movement. 
You  mio:ht  have  sworn  there  was  no  bird 
there  ;  and  perhaps  you  would  not  have  per- 
jured yourself ;  for  presently  I  stepped  up 
to  the  brush-heap  and  trampled  it  over,  and 
still  there  was  no  sign  of  life.  Above  the 
brush  was  a  low  stone  wall,  and  beyond  that 
a  bare  ploughed  field.  How  the  fellow  had 
slipped  away  there  was  no  telling.  And 
that  was  the  end  of  the  story.  But  I  had 
seen  him,  and  he  was  a  Lincoln  finch.  It 
was  a  shabby  interview  he  had  granted  me, 
after  keeping  me  waiting  for  almost  twenty 
years  ;  but  then,  I  repeated  for  my  comfort, 
I  had  seen  him. 


70  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

He  was  less  confusingly  like  a  song  sjjar- 
row  tlian  I  had  been  prepared  to  find  liim. 
His  general  color  (one  of  a  bird's  best  marks 
in  life,  bard  as  it  may  be  to  derive  an  exact 
idea  of  it  from  printed  descriptions),  gray 
with  a  greenish  tinge,  —  a  little  suggestive 
of  Henslow's  bunting,  as  it  struck  me,  — 
this,  I  thought,  supposing  it  to  be  constant, 
ought  to  catch  the  eye  at  a  glance.  Hence- 
forth I  should  know  what  to  look  for,  and 
might  expect  better  luck  ;  although,  if  this 
particular  bird's  behavior  was  to  be  taken  as 
a  criterion,  the  books  had  been  quite  within 
the  mark  in  emphasizing  the  sly  and  elusive 
habit  of  the  species,  and  the  consequent  diffi- 
culty of  prolonged  and  satisfactory  observa- 
tion of  it. 

The  Lincoln  finch,  or  Lincoln  sparrow, 
the  reader  should  know,  is  a  congener  of  the 
song  sparrow  and  the  swamp  sparrow,  a  na- 
tive mostly  of  the  far  north,  and  while  com- 
mon enough  as  a  migrant  in  many  parts  of 
the  United  States,  is,  or  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  be,  something  of  a  rarity  in  the 
Eastern  States. 

Meanwhile,  having  beaten  the  brush  over, 


AUTUMN  71 

and  looked  up  the  roadside  and  down  the 
roadside  and  over  the  wall,  I  went  on  my 
way,  stopping  once  for  a  feast  of  blackber- 
ries, —  as  many  and  as  good  as  a  man  could 
ask  for,  long,  slender,  sweet,  and  dead  ripe  ; 
and  at  the  top  of  the  road  I  cut  across  a 
hayfield  to  the  lane  before  mentioned,  that 
should  take  me  back  to  the  Sugar  Hill  high- 
way. Now  the  prospects  were  in  front  of 
me,  there  was  no  more  steepness  of  grade,  I 
had  seen  Tom  Lincoln's  finch,i  and  the  day 
was  brighter  than  ever.  Every  sparrow  that 
stirred  I  must  put  my  glass  on ;  but  not  one 
was  of  the  right  complexion. 

Then,  in  a  sugar  grove  not  far  from  the 
Franconia  Inn,  I  found  myself  all  at  once 
in  the  midst  of  one  of  those  traveling  flocks 
that  make  so  delightful  a  break  in  a  bird- 
lover's  day.  I  was  in  the  midst  of  it,  I  say ; 
but  the  real  fact  was  that  the  birds  were 
passing  through  the  grove  between  me  and 
the  sky.  For  the  time  being  the  branches 
were  astir  with  wings.  Such  minutes  are 
exciting.     "  Now  or  never,"  a  man  says  to 

1  "  I  named  it  Tom's  Finch,"  says  Audubon,  "  in  honor 
of  our  friend  Lincoln,  who  was  a  great  favorite  among  us." 


72  FOOTING  IT  IN   FRANCONIA 

himself.  Every  second  is  precious.  At  this 
precise  moment  a  warbler  is  above  your 
head,  far  up  in  the  topmost  bough  perhaps, 
half  hidden  by  a  leaf.  If  you  miss  him,  he 
is  gone  forever.  If  you  make  him  out,  well 
and  good ;  he  may  be  a  rarity,  a  prize  long 
waited  for ;  or,  quite  as  likely,  while  busy 
with  him  you  may  let  a  ten  times  rarer  one 
pass  unnoticed.  In  this  game,  as  in  any 
other,  a  man  must  rim  his  chances ;  though 
there  is  skill  as  well  as  luck  in  it,  without 
doubt,  and  one  player  will  take  a  trick  or 
two  more  than  another,  with  the  same  hand. 
In  the  present  instance,  so  far  as  my 
canvass  showed,  the  "  wave  "  was  made  up 
of  myrtle  warblers,  blackpoUs,  baybreasts, 
black-throated  greens,  a  chestnut-side,  a 
Maryland  yeUow-throat,  red-eyed  vireos, 
solitary  vireos,  one  or  more  scarlet  tanagers 
(in  undress,  of  course,  and  pretty  late 
by  my  reckoning),  ruby-crowned  kinglets, 
chickadees,  winter  wrens,  goldfinches,  song 
sparrows,  and  flickers.  The  last  three  or 
four  species,  it  is  probable  enough,  were  in 
the  grove  only  by  accident,  and  are  hardly 
to   be  counted  as  part  of  the  south-bound 


AUTUMN  73 

caravan.  Several  of  the  species  were  in 
good  force,  and  doubtless  some  species 
eluded  me  altogether.  No  man  can  look  all 
ways  at  once  ;  and  in  autumn  the  eyes  must 
do  not  only  their  own  work,  but  that  of  the 
ears  as  well. 

All  the  while  the  birds  hastened  on,  flit- 
ting from  tree  to  tree,  feeding  a  minute  and 
then  away,  following  the  stream.  I  was  es- 
pecially glad  of  the  baybreasts,  of  which 
there  were  two  at  least,  both  very  distinctly 
marked,  though  in  nothing  like  their  spring 
plumage.  I  saw  only  one  other  specimen 
this  fall,  but  the  name  is  usually  in  my  au- 
tumnal Franconia  list.  The  chestnut-side, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  the  first  one  I  had 
ever  found  here  at  this  season,  and  was  cor- 
respondingly welcome. 

After  all,  a  catalogue  of  names  gives  but 
a  meagre  idea  of  such  a  flock,  except  to 
those  who  have  seen  similar  ones,  and 
amused  themselves  with  them  in  a  similar 
manner.  But  I  had  had  the  fun,  whether 
I  can  make  any  one  else  appreciate  it  or 
not,  and  between  it  and  my  joy  over  the 
Lincoln  finch  I  went  home  in  high  feather. 


74         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Five  days  longer  I  followed  the  road 
alone.  Every  time  a  sparrow  darted  into 
the  bushes  too  quickly  for  me  to  name  him, 
I  thought  of  Melospiza  lincolni.  Once,  in- 
deed, on  the  Bethlehem  road,  I  believed  that 
I  reaUy  saw  a  bird  of  that  species  ;  but  it 
was  in  the  act  of  disappearing,  and  no 
amount  of  pains  or  patience  —  or  no  amount 
that  I  had  to  spare  —  could  procure  me  a 
second  glimpse. 

On  the  sixth  day  came  my  friend,  the 
second  foot-passenger,  and  was  told  of  my 
good  fortune ;  and  together  we  began  forth- 
with to  walk  —  and  look  at  sparrows.  This, 
also,  was  vain,  until  the  morning  of  October 
4.  I  was  out  first.  A  robin  was  cackling 
from  a  tall  treetop,  as  I  stepped  upon  the 
piazza,  and  a  song  sparrow  sang  from  a 
cluster  of  bushes  across  the  way.  Other 
birds  were  there,  and  I  went  over  to  have  a 
look  at  them :  two  or  three  white-throats,  as 
many  song  sparrows,  and  a  white-crown. 
Then  by  squeaking  I  called  into  sight  two 
swamp  sparrows  (migrants  newly  come,  they 
must  be,  to  be  found  in  such  a  place),  and 
directly  afterward  up  hopped  a  small  gray- 


AUTUMN  75 

isli  sparrow,  seen  at  a  glance  to  be  like  my 
bird  of  nine  days  before,  —  like  him  in 
looks,  but  not  in  behavior.  He  conducted 
himself  in  the  most  accommodating  manner, 
was  full  of  curiosity,  not  in  the  least  shy, 
and  afforded  me  every  opportunity  to  look 
him  over  to  my  heart's  content. 

In  the  midst  of  it  all  I  heard  my  com- 
rade's footfall  on  the  piazza,  and  gave  him 
a  whistle.  He  came  at  once,  wading  through 
the  wet  grass  in  his  slippers.  He  knew  from 
my  attitude  —  so  he  firmly  declared  after- 
ward—  that  it  was  a  Lincoln  finch  I  was 
gazing  at !  And  just  as  he  drew  near,  the 
sparrow,  sitting  in  full  view  and  facing  us, 
in  a  way  to  show  off  his  peculiar  marks 
to  the  best  advantage,  uttered  a  single 
cheep,  thoroughly  distinctive,  or  at  least 
quite  unlike  any  sparrow's  note  with  which 
I  am  famihar ;  as  characteristic,  I  should 
say,  as  the  song  sparrow's  tut.  Then  he 
dropped  to  the  ground.  "  Yes,  I  saw  him, 
and  heard  the  note,"  my  companion  said; 
and  he  hastened  into  the  house  for  his  boots 
and  his  opera-glass.  In  a  few  minutes  he 
was  back  again,  fully  equipped,  and  we  set 


76  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

ourselves  to  coax  the  fellow  into  making  an- 
other display  of  himself.  Sure  enough,  he 
responded  almost  immediately,  and  we  had 
another  satisfying  observation  of  him,  though 
this  time  he  kept  silence.  I  was  espec- 
ially interested  to  find,  what  I  had  on  gen- 
eral considerations  suspected,  that  Lincoln 
finches  were  like  other  members  of  their 
family.  Take  them  right  (by  themselves, 
and  without  startling  them  to  begin  with), 
and  they  could  be  as  complaisant  as  one 
could  desire,  no  matter  how  timid  and  elu- 
sive they  might  be  under  different  condi- 
tions. Our  bird  was  certainly  a  jewel.  For 
a  while  he  pleased  us  by  perching  side  by 
side  with  a  song  sparrow.  "  You  see  how 
much  smaller  I  am,"  he  might  have  been  say- 
ing ;  "  you  may  know  me  partly  by  that." 

And  we  fancied  we  should  know  him 
thereafter ;  but  a  novice's  knowledge  is 
only  a  novice's,  as  we  were  to  be  freshly 
reminded  that  very  day.  Our  jaunt  was 
round  Garnet  Hill,  the  all-day  expedition 
before  referred  to.  I  will  not  rehearse  the 
story  of  it ;  but  while  we  were  on  the  farther 
side  of  the  hill,  somewhere  in  Lisbon,  we 


AUTUMN  77 

found  the  roadsides  swarming  with  sparrows, 

—  a  mixed  flock,  song  sparrows,  field  spar- 
rows, chippers,  and  white-crowns.  Among 
them  one  of  us  by  and  by  detected  a  gray- 
ish, smallish  bird,  and  we  began  hunting 
him,  from  bush  to  bush  and  from  one  side 
of  the  road  to  the  other,  carrying  on  all 
the  while  an  eager  debate  as  to  his  identity. 
Now  we  were  sure  of  him,  and  now  every- 
thing was  unsettled.  His  breast  was  streaked 
and  had  a  yellow  band  across  it.  His  color 
and  size  were  right,  as  well  as  we  could  say, 

—  so  decidedly  so  that  there  was  no  diffi- 
culty whatever  in  picking  him  out  at  a 
glance  after  losing  him  in  a  flying  bunch ; 
but  some  of  his  motions  were  pretty  song- 
sparrow-like,  and  what  my  fellow  observer 
was  most  staggered  by,  he  showed  a  blotch, 
a  running  together  of  the  dark  streaks,  in 
the  middle  of  the  breast,  —  a  point  very 
characteristic  of  the  song  sparrow,  but  not 
mentioned  in  book  descriptions  of  Melospiza 
lincolni.  So  we  chased  him  and  discussed 
him  (that  was  the  time  for  a  gun,  the  pro- 
fessional wiU  say),  tiU  he  got  away  from  us 
for  good. 


78         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Was  lie  a  Lincoln  fincli  ?  Who  knows  ? 
We  left  the  question  open.  But  I  believe 
he  was.  The  main  reason,  not  to  say  the 
only  one,  for  our  uncertainty  was  the  pec- 
toral blotch  ;  and  that,  I  have  since  learned, 
is  often  seen  in  specimens  of  Melospiza  lin- 
colni.  Why  the  manuals  make  no  reference 
to  it  I  cannot  tell ;  as  I  cannot  tell  why  they 
omit  the  same  point  in  describing  the  sa- 
vanna sparrow.  In  scientific  books,  as  in 
"popular"  magazine  articles,  many  things 
must  no  doubt  be  passed  over  for  lack  of 
room.  In  any  case,  it  is  not  the  worst  mis- 
fortune that  could  befall  us  to  have  some 
things  left  for  our  own  finding  out. 

And  after  all,  the  question  was  not  of 
supreme  importance.  Though  I  was  de- 
lighted to  have  seen  a  new  bird,  and  doubly 
delighted  to  have  seen  it  in  Franconia,  the 
great  joy  of  my  visit  was  not  in  any  such 
fragment  of  knowledge,  but  in  that  bright 
and  glorious  world ;  mountains  and  valleys 
beautiful  in  themselves,  and  endeared  by  the 
memory  of  happy  days  among  them.  Some- 
times I  wonder  whether  the  pleasures  of 
memory  may  not  be  worth  the  price  of  grow- 
ing old. 


SPKING 

"  He  would  now  be  up  every  morning'  by  break  of  day, 
walking  to  and  fro  in  the  valley.' '  —  Bunyan. 

It  was  a  white  day,  tlie  day  of  tlie  red 
cherry,  — by  the  almanac  the  20th  of  May. 
Once  in  the  hill  country,  the  train  ran  hour 
after  hour  through  a  world  of  shrubs  and 
small  trees,  loaded  every  one  with  blossoms. 
Their  number  was  amazing.  I  should  not 
have  believed  there  were  so  many  in  all  New 
Hampshire.  The  snowy  branches  fairly 
whitened  the  woods  ;  as  if  all  the  red-cherry 
trees  of  the  country  round  about  were  as- 
sembled along  the  track  to  celebrate  a  festi- 
val. The  spectacle  —  for  it  was  nothing  less 
—  made  me  think  of  the  annual  dogwood 
display  as  I  had  witnessed  it  in  the  Alle- 
ghanies  and  further  south.  I  remembered, 
too,  a  similar  New  England  pageant  of  some 
years  ago  ;  a  thing  of  annual  occurrence, 
of  course,  but  never  seen  by  me  before  or 


80         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

since.  Then  it  happened  that  I  came  clown 
from  Vermont  (this  also  was  in  May)  just 
at  the  time  when  the  shaclbushes  were  in 
their  glory.  Like  the  wild  red-cherry  trees, 
as  I  saw  them  now,  they  seemed  to  fill  the 
world.  Such  miles  on  miles  of  a  floral 
panorama  are  among  the  memorable  delights 
of  spring  travel. 

For  the  cherry's  sake  I  was  glad  that  my 
leaving  home  had  been  delayed  a  week  or 
two  beyond  my  first  intention ;  though  I 
thought  then,  as  I  do  still,  that  an  earlier 
start  would  have  shown  me  something  more 
of  real  spring  among  the  mountains,  which, 
after  all,  was  what  I  had  come  out  to  see. 

The  light  showers  through  which  I  drove 
over  the  hills  from  Littleton  were  gone  be- 
fore sunset,  and  as  the  twilight  deepened  I 
strolled  up  the  Butter  Hill  road  as  far  as 
the  grove  of  red  pines,  just  to  feel  the  ground 
under  my  feet  and  to  hear  the  hermit 
thrushes.  How  divinely  they  sang,  one  on 
either  side  of  the  way,  voice  answering  to 
voice,  the  very  soul  of  music,  out  of  the 
darkening  woods !  I  agree  with  a  friendly 
correspondent  who  wrote  me,  the  other  day, 


SPRING  81 

fresh  from  a  summer  in  France,  that  the 
nightingale  is  no  such  singer.  I  have  never 
heard  the  nightingale,  but  that  does  not  alter 
my  opinion.  Formerly  I  wished  that  the 
hermit,  and  all  the  rest  of  our  woodland 
thrushes,  would  practice  a  longer  and  more 
continuous  strain.  Now  I  think  differently ; 
for  I  see  now  that  what  I  looked  upon  as  a 
blemish  is  really  the  perfection  of  art.  Those 
brief,  deliberate  phrases,  breaking  one  by 
one  out  of  the  silence,  lift  the  soul  higher 
than  any  smooth-flowing  warble  could  possibly 
do.  Worship  has  no  gift  of  long-breathed 
fluency.  If  she  speaks  at  all,  it  is  in  the 
way  of  ejaculation :  "  Therefore  let  thy  words 
be  few,"  said  the  Preacher,  —  a  text  which 
is  only  a  modern  Hebrew  version  of  what 
the  hermit  thrush  has  been  saying  here  in  the 
White  Mountains  for  ten  thousand  years. 

One  of  the  principal  glories  of  Franconia 
is  the  same  in  spring  as  in  autumn,  —  the 
colors  of  the  forest.  There  is  no  describing 
them:  greens  and  reds  of  all  tender  and 
lovely  shades  ;  not  to  speak  of  the  exquisite 
haze-blue,  or  blue-purple,  which  mantles  the 
still  budded  woods  on  the  higher  slopes.    For 


82  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

the  reds  I  was  quite  unprepared.  They 
have  never  been  written  about,  so  far  as  I 
know,  doubtless  because  they  have  never  been 
seen.  The  scribbling  tourist  is  never  here 
till  long  after  they  are  gone.  In  fact,  I 
stayed  late  enough,  on  my  present  visit,  to 
see  the  end  of  them.  I  knew,  of  course, 
that  young  maple  leaves,  like  old  ones,  are 
of  a  ruddy  complexion  ;  ^  but  somehow  I 
had  never  considered  that  the  massing  of 
the  trees  on  hillsides  would  work  the  same 
gorgeous,  spectacular  effect  in  spring  as  in 
autumn,  —  broad  patches  of  splendor  hung 
aloft,  a  natural  tapestry,  for  the  eye  to  feast 
upon.  Not  that  May  is  as  gaudy  as  Sep- 
tember. There  are  no  brilliant  yellows,  and 
the  reds  are  many  shades  less  fiery  than  au- 
tumn furnishes ;  but  what  is  lacking  in  in- 
tensity is  more  than  made  up  in  delicacy,  as 
the  bloom  of  youth  is  fairer  than  any  hectic 
flush.  The  glory  passed,  as  I  have  said. 
Before  the  1st  of  June  it  had  deepened,  and 
then  disappeared ;  but  the  sight  of  it  was  of 
itself  enough  to  reward  my  journey. 

^  But  the  brightness  of  red-maple  groves  at  this  season 
is  mostly  not  in  the  leaves,  but  in  the  fruit. 


SPRING  83 

The  clouds  returned  after  the  rain,  and 
my  first  forenoon  was  spent  under  an  um- 
brella on  the  Bethlehem  plateau,  not  so  much 
walking  as  standing  about ;  now  in  the  woods, 
now  in  the  sandy  road,  now  in  the  dooryard 
of  an  empty  house.  It  was  Sunday;  the 
rain,  quiet  and  intermittent,  rather  favored 
music  ;  and  all  in  all,  things  were  pretty 
much  to  my  mind,  —  plenty  to  see  and  hear, 
yet  all  of  a  sweetly  familiar  sort,  such  as  one 
hardly  thinks  of  putting  into  a  notebook. 
Why  record,  as  if  it  could  be  forgotten  or 
needed  to  be  remembered,  the  lisping  of 
happy  chickadees  or  the  whistle  of  white- 
throated  sparrows  ?  Or  why  speak  of  shad- 
blow  and  goldthread,  or  even  of  the  lovely 
painted  trilliums,  with  their  three  daintily 
crinkled  petals,  streaked  with  rose-purple? 
The  trilliums,  indeed,  well  deserved  to  be 
spoken  of :  so  bright  and  bold  they  were  ; 
every  blossom  looking  the  sun  squarely  in 
the  face,  —  in  great  contrast  with  the  pale 
and  bashful  wake-robin,  which  I  find  (by 
searching  for  it)  in  my  own  woods.  One 
after  another  I  gathered  them  (pulled  them, 
to  speak  with  poetic  literalness),  each  fresher 


84  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

and  handsomer  than  the  one  before  it,  till 
the  white  stems  made  a  handful. 

"  Oh,"  said  a  man  on  the  piazza,  as  I  re- 
turned to  the  hotel,  "  I  see  you  have  nose- 
bleed." I  was  putting  my  hand  to  my 
pocket,  wondering  why  I  should  have  been 
taken  so  childishly,  when  it  came  over  me 
what  he  meant.  He  was  looking  at  the 
trilliums,  and  explained,  in  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion, that  he  had  always  heard  them  called 
"  nosebleed."  Somewhere,  then,  —  I  omitted 
to  inquire  where,  —  this  is  their  "  vulgar  " 
name.  In  Franconia  the  people  call  them 
"  Benjamins,"  which  has  a  pleasant  Biblical 
sound,  —  better  than  "  nosebleed,"  at  all 
events,  —  though  to  my  thinking  "  triUium  " 
is  preferable  to  either  of  them,  both  for 
sound  and  for  sense.  People  cry  out  against 
"  Latin  names."  But  why  is  Latin  worse 
than  Hebrew  ?  And  who  could  ask  anything 
prettier  or  easier  than  trillium,  geranium, 
anemone,  and  hepatica? 

The  next  morning  I  set  out  for  Echo  Lake. 
At  that  height,  in  that  hollow  among  the 
mountains,  the  season  must  still  be  young. 
There,  if  anywhere,  I  should  find  the  early 


SPRING  86 

violet  and  the  trailing  mayflower.  And 
whatever  I  found,  or  did  not  find,  at  the  end 
of  the  way,  I  should  have  made  another  as- 
cent of  the  dear  old  Notch  road,  every  rod 
of  it  the  pleasanter  for  happy  memories.  I 
had  never  traveled  it  in  May,  with  the 
glossy-leaved  clintonia  yet  in  the  bud,  and 
the  broad,  grassy  golf  links  above  the  Pro- 
file House  farm  all  frosty  with  houstonia 
bloom.  And  many  times  as  I  had  been 
over  it,  I  had  never  known  till  now  that 
rhodora  stood  along  its  very  edge.  To-day, 
with  the  pink  blossoms  brightening  the 
crooked,  leafless,  knee-high  stems,  not  even 
my  eyes  could  miss  it.  Our  one  small  pear- 
leaved  willow,  near  the  foot  of  Hardscrabble, 
was  in  flower,  its  maroon  leaves  partly  grown. 
Well  I  remembered  the  June  morning  when 
I  lighted  upon  it,  and  the  interest  shown  by 
the  senior  botanist  of  our  little  company  when 
J  reported  the  discovery,  at  the  dinner  table. 
He  went  up  that  very  afternoon  to  see  it  for 
himself ;  and  year  after  year,  while  he  lived, 
he  watched  over  it,  more  than  once  caution- 
ing the  road-menders  against  its  destruction. 
How  many  times  he  and  I  have  stopped  be- 


86  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

side  it,  on  our  way  up  and  down !  The 
"  Torrey  willow  "  lie  always  called  it,  strok- 
ing my  vanity ;  and  I  liked  the  word. 

Now  a  chipmunk  speaks  to  me,  as  I  pass ; 
it  is  not  his  fault,  nor  mine  either,  perhaps, 
that  I  do  not  understand  him ;  and  now, 
hearing  a  twig  snap,  I  glance  up  in  time  to 
see  a  woodchuck  scuttling  out  of  sight  un- 
der the  high,  overhanging  bank.  So  he  is  a 
dweller  in  these  upper  mountain  woods  !  ^  I 
should  have  thought  him  too  nice  an  epicure 
to  feel  himself  at  home  in  such  diggings. 
But  who  knows  ?  Perhaps  he  finds  some- 
thing hereabout  —  wood-sorrel  or  what  not 
—  that  is  more  savory  even  than  young 
clover  leaves  and  early  garden  sauce.  From 
somewhere  on  my  right  comes  the  sweet  — 
honey-sweet  —  warble  of  a  rose-breasted  gros- 
beak ;  and  almost  over  my  head,  at  the  top- 
most point  of  a  tall  spruce,  sits  a  Blackburn- 
ian  warbler,  doing  his  little  utmost  to  express 
himself.  His  pitch  is  as  high  as  his  perch, 
and  his  tone,  pure  s,  is  like  the  finest  of 
wire.     Another  water  bar  surmounted,  and 

^  Yes,  he  has  even  been  seen  (and  "taken"),  so  I  am 
told,  at  the  summit  of  Mount  Washmgton. 


SPRING  87 

a  baybreast  sings,  and  lets  me  see  him,  —  a 
bird  I  always  love  to  look  at,  and  a  song  tliat 
I  always  have  to  learn  anew,  partly  because 
I  hear  it  so  seldom,  partly  because  of  its 
want  of  individuality:  a  single  hurried 
phrase,  pure  z  like  the  Blackburnian's,  and 
of  the  same  wire-drawn  tenuity.  These 
warblers  are  poor  hands  at  warbling,  but 
they  are  musical  to  the  eye.  By  this  rule, 
—  if  throats  were  made  to  be  looked  at,  and 
judged  by  the  feathers  on  them,  —  the  Black- 
burnian  might  challenge  comparison  with 
any  singer  under  the  sun. 

As  the  road  ascends,  the  aspect  of  things 
grows  more  and  more  springlike,  —  or  less 
and  less  summerlike.  Black-birch  catkins 
are  just  beginning  to  fall,  and  a  little  higher, 
not  far  from  the  Bald  Mountain  path,  I  no- 
tice a  sugar  maple  still  hanging  full  of  pale 
straw-colored  tassels,  —  encouraging  signs  to 
a  man  who  was  becoming  apprehensive  lest 
he  had  arrived  too  late. 

Then,  as  I  pass  the  height  of  land  and  be- 
gin the  gentle  descent  into  the  Notch,  front- 
ing the  white  peak  of  Lafayette  and  the 
black  face  of  Eagle  Cliif ,  I  am  aware  of  a 


88  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

strange  sensation,  as  if  I  had  stepped  into 
another  world  :  hare,  leafless  woods  and  sud- 
den hlank  silence.  All  the  way  hitherto 
birds  have  been  singing  on  either  hand,  my 
ear  picking  out  the  voices  one  by  one,  while 
flies  and  mosquitoes  have  buzzed  continually 
about  my  head ;  here,  all  in  a  moment,  not 
a  bird,  not  an  insect,  —  a  stillness  like  that 
of  winter.  Minute  after  minute,  rod  after 
rod,  and  not  a  breath  of  sound,  —  not  so 
much  as  the  stirring  of  a  leaf.  I  could  not 
have  believed  such  a  transformation  possible. 
It  is  uncanny.  I  walk  as  in  a  dream.  The 
silence  lasts  for  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
Then  a  warbler  breaks  it  for  an  instant,  and 
leaves  it,  if  possible,  more  absolute  than  be- 
fore. I  am  going  southward,  and  downhill ; 
but  I  am  going  into  the  Notch,  into  the  very 
shadow  of  the  mountains,  where  Winter 
makes  his  last  rally  against  the  inevitable. 

And  yes,  here  are  some  of  the  early  flow- 
ers I  have  come  in  search  of :  the  dear  little 
yellow  violets,  whose  glossy,  round  leaves,  no 
more  than  haK-grown  as  yet,  seem  to  love 
the  very  border  of  a  snowbank.  Here,  too, 
is  a  most  flourishing  patch  of  spring-beauties, 


SPRING  89 

and  anotlier  of  adder's-tongue,  —  dog-tooth 
violet,  so  called.  Of  the  latter  there  must 
be  hundreds  of  acres  in  Franconia.  I  have 
seen  the  freckled  leaves  everywhere,  and  now 
and  then  a  few  belated  blossoms.  Here  I 
have  it  at  its  best,  the  whole  bed  thick  with 
buds  and  freshly  blown  flowers.  But  the 
round-leaved  violet  is  what  I  am  chiefly 
taken  with.  The  very  type  and  pattern  of 
modesty,  I  am  ready  to  say.  The  spring- 
beauty  masses  itself  ;  and  though  every  blos- 
som, if  you  look  at  it,  is  a  miracle  of  deli- 
cacy, —  lustrous  pink  satin,  with  veinings 
of  a  deeper  shade,  —  it  may  fairly  be  said 
to  make  a  show.  But  the  violets,  scattered, 
and  barely  out  of  the  ground,  must  be  sought 
after  one  by  one.  So  meek,  and  yet  so  bold  ! 
—  part  of  the  beautiful  vernal  paradox,  that 
the  lowly  and  the  frail  are  the  first  to  ven- 
ture. 

As  I  come  down  to  the  lakeside,  —  mak- 
ing toward  the  lower  end,  whither  I  always 
go,  because  there  the  railroad  is  least  obtru- 
sively in  sight  and  the  mountains  are  faced 
to  the  best  advantage,  —  two  or  three  soli- 
tary sandpipers  flit  before  me,  tw^eeting  and 


90         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

bobbing,  and  a  winter  wren  (invisible,  of 
course)  sings  from  a  thicket  at  my  elbow. 
A  jolly  songster  he  is,  with  the  clearest  and 
finest  of  tones  —  a  true  fife  —  and  an  irre- 
sistible accent  and  rhythm.  A  bird  by  him- 
self. This  fellow  hurries  and  hurries  (am  I 
wrong  in  half  remembering  a  line  by  some 
poet  about  a  bird  that  "  hurries  and  precipi- 
tates "?),  ^  till  the  tempo  becomes  too  much 
for  him  ;  the  notes  can  no  longer  be  taken, 
and,  like  a  boy  running  down  too  steep  a 
hill,  he  finishes  with  a  slide.  I  think  of 
those  pianoforte  passages  which  the  most 
lightning-like  of  performers  —  Paderewski 
himself  —  are  reduced  to  playing  ignomini- 
ously  with  the  back  of  one  finger.  I  know 
not  their  technical  name,  if  they  have  one,  — 
finger-nail  runs,  perhaps.  I  remember,  also, 
Thoreau's  description  of  a  song  heard  in 
Tuckerman's  Ravine  and  here  in  the  Fran- 
conia  Notch.  He  could  never  discover  the 
author  of  it,  but  pretty  certainly  it  was  the 
winter  wren.     "  Most  peculiar  and   memo- 

1  No,  the  line  is  Coleridge's :  — 

"  the  merry  nightingale 
That  crowds,  and  hurries,  and  precipitates 
With  fast  thick  warble  his  delicious  notes." 


SPRING  91 

rable,"  he  pronounces  it,  like  a  "  fine  cork- 
screw stream  issuing  with  incessant  tinkle 
from  a  cork."  "  Tinkle  "  is  exactly  the  word. 
Trust  Thoreau  to  find  that^  though  he  could 
not  find  the  singer.  If  the  thrushes  are  left 
out  of  the  account,  there  is  no  voice  in  the 
mountains  that  I  am  gladder  to  hear. 

Near  the  outlet  of  the  lake,  in  a  shaded 
hollow,  lies  a  deep  snowbank,  and  not  far 
away  the  ground  is  matted  with  trailing  ar- 
butus, still  in  plentiful  bloom.  One  of  the 
most  attractive  things  here  is  the  few-flow- 
ered shadbush  (^Amelanchier  oligocaTpci), 
The  common  A,  Canadensis  grows  near  by  ; 
and  it  is  astonishing  how  unlike  the  two  spe- 
cies look,  although  the  difference  (the  visi- 
ble difference,  I  mean)  is  mostly  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  flowers,  —  clustered  in  one 
case,  separately  disposed  in  the  other.  To- 
day the  "  average  observer "  would  look 
twice  before  suspecting  any  close  relation- 
ship between  them ;  a  week  or  two  hence  he 
would  look  a  dozen  times  before  remarking 
any  distinction.  With  them,  as  with  the 
red  cherry,  it  is  the  blossom  that  makes  the 
bush. 


92         FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

So  much  for  my  first  May  morning  on  the 
Notch  road  and  by  the  lake  :  a  few  particu- 
lars caught  in  passing,  to  be  taken  for  what 
they  are,  — 

"  Samples  and  sorts,  not  for  themselves   alone,  but   for 
their  atmosphere." 

In  the  afternoon  I  went  over  into  the 
Landaff  Valley,  having  in  mind  a  restful, 
level-country  stroll,  with  a  view  especially  to 
the  probable  presence  of  Tennessee  warblers 
in  that  quarter.  One  or  two  had  been  sing- 
ing constantly  near  the  hotel  for  two  days 
(ever  since  my  arrival,  that  is),  and  Sunday 
I  had  heard  another  beside  the  Bethlehem 
road.  Whether  they  were  migrants  only,  or 
had  settled  in  Franconia  for  the  season,  they 
ought,  it  seemed  to  me,  to  be  found  also  in. 
the  big  Landaff  larch  swamp,  where  we  had 
seen  them  so  often  in  June,  ten  or  twelve 
years  ago.  As  I  had  heard  the  song  but 
once  since  that  time,  I  was  naturally  dis- 
posed to  make  the  most  of  the  present  oppor- 
tunity. 

I  turned  in  at  the  old  hay  barn,  —  one  of 
my  favorite  resorts,  where  I  have  seen  many 
a  pretty  bunch  of  autumnal   transients, — 


SPKING  93 

and  sure  enough,  a  Tennessee's  voice  was 
one  of  the  first  to  greet  me.  Tliis  fellow 
sang  as  a  Tennessee  ought  to  sing,  I  said  to 
myself.  By  which  I  meant  that  his  song 
was  clearly  made  up  of  three  parts,  just  as  I 
had  kept  it  in  memory ;  whereas  the  birds 
near  the  hotel,  as  well  as  the  one  on  the 
Bethlehem  road,  divided  theirs  but  once. 
No  great  matter,  somebody  will  say  ;  but  a 
self-respecting  man  likes  to  have  his  recollec- 
tions justified,  even  about  trifles,  particularly 
when  he  has  confided  them  to  print.^ 

The  swamp  had  begun  well  with  its  old 
eulogist ;  but  better  things  were  in  store.  I 
passed  an  hour  or  more  in  the  w^oods,  for  the 

1  So  I  was  relieved  to  find  all  the  Franconia  white- 
throated  sparrows  introducing-  their  sets  of  triplets  with 
two  —  not  three  —  longer  single  notes.  That  was  how  I 
had  always  whistled  the  tune  ;  and  I  had  been  astonished 
and  grieved  to  see  it  printed  in  musical  notation  by  Mr. 
Cheney,  and  again  by  Mr.  Chapman,  with  an  introductory 
measure  of  three  notes  :  as  if  it  were  to  go,  "  Old  Sam, 
Sam  Peabody,  Peabody,  Peabody,"  instead  of,  as  I  re- 
membered it,  and  as  reason  dictated,  "  Old  Sam  Pea- 
body, Peabody,  Peabody."  I  am  not  intimating  that  Mr. 
Cheney  and  Mr.  Chapman  are  wrong,  but  that  my  own 
recollection  was  right,  —  a  very  different  matter,  as  my 
present  experience  with  Tennessee  warblers  was  sufficient 
to  show. 


94  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

most  part  sitting  still  (which  is  pretty  good 
after-dinner  ornithology),  and  had  just  taken 
the  road  again  when  a  bevy  of  talkative 
chickadees  came  straggling  down  the  rim  of 
the  swamp,  flitting  from  one  tree  to  another, 
—  a  morsel  here  and  a  morsel  there,  —  after 
their  usual  manner  while  on  the  march. 
Now,  then,  for  a  few  migratory  warblers, 
which  always  may  be  looked  for  in  such  com- 
pany. 

True  to  the  word,  my  glass  was  hardly  in 
play  before  a  bay-breast  showed  himself,  in 
magnificent  plumage ;  then  came  a  Black- 
burnian,  also  in  high  feather,  handsomer 
even  than  the  bay-breast,  but  less  of  a  rar- 
ity; and  then,  all  in  a  flash,  I  caught  a 
glimpse  of  some  bright-colored,  black-and- 
yellow  bird  that,  almost  certainly,  from  an 
indefinable  something  half  seen  about  the 
head,  could  not  be  a  magnolia.  "  That 
should  be  a  Cape  May !  "  I  said  aloud  to 
myself.  Even  as  I  spoke,  however,  he  was 
out  of  sight.  Down  the  road  I  went,  trying 
to  keep  abreast  of  the  flock,  which  moved 
much  too  rapidly  for  my  comfort.  Again  I 
saw  what  might  have  been  the  Cape  May,  but 


SPRING  95 

again  there  was  nothing  like  certainty.  And 
again  I  lost  him.  With  the  trees  so  thick, 
and  the  birds  so  small  and  so  active,  it  was 
impossible  to  do  better.  I  had  missed  my 
chance,  I  thought ;  but  just  then  something 
stirred  among  the  leaves  of  a  fir  tree  close 
by  me,  on  the  very  edge  of  the  swamp,  and 
the  next  moment  a  bird  stepped  upon  the 
outermost  twig,  as  near  me  as  he  could  get, 
and  stood  there  fully  displayed :  a  splendid 
Cape  May,  in  superb  color,  my  first  New 
England  specimen.  "■  Look  at  me,"  he  said ; 
"this  is  for  your  benefit."  And  I  looked 
with  both  eyes.  Who  would  not  be  an  or- 
nithologist, with  sights  like  this  to  reward 
him? 

The  procession  moved  on,  by  the  air  line, 
impossible  for  me  to  follow.  The  Cape 
May,  of  course,  had  departed  with  the  rest. 
So  I  assumed,  —  without  warrant,  as  will 
presently  appear.  But  I  had  no  quarrel 
with  Fate.  For  a  plodding,  wingless  crea- 
ture, long  accustomed  to  his  disabilities,  I 
was  being  handsomely  used.  The  soid  is 
always  seeking  new  things,  says  a  celebrated 
French  philosopher,  and  is  always  pleased 


96  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

wlien  it  is  shown  more  than  it  had  hoped 
for.  This  is  preeminently  true  of  rare  war- 
blers. Now  I  would  cross  the  bridge,  walk 
once  more  under  the  arch  of  willows, — 
happy  that  I  could  w^alk,  being  a  man  only, 
—  and  back  to  the  village  again  by  the  up- 
per road.  For  a  half  mile  on  that  road  the 
prospect  is  such  that  no  mortal  need  desire 
a  better  one. 

First,  however,  I  must  train  my  glass  upon 
a  certain  dark  object  out  in  the  meadow,  to 
see  whether  it  was  a  stump  (it  was  motion- 
less enough  for  one,  but  I  did  n't  remember 
it  there)  or  a  woodchuck.  It  turned  out  to 
be  a  woodchuck,  erect  upon  his  haunches, 
his  fore  paws  lifted  in  an  attitude  of  devo- 
tion. The  sight  was  common  just  now  in 
all  Franconia  grassland,  no  matter  in  what 
direction  my  jaunts  took  me.  And  always 
the  attitude  was  the  same,  as  if  now  were 
the  ground-hog's  Lent.  "  Watch  and  pray  " 
is  his  motto ;  and  he  thrives  upon  it  like  a 
monk.  Though  the  legislature  sets  a  price 
on  his  head,  he  keeps  in  better  flesh  than 
the  average  legislator.  Well  done,  say  I. 
May  his  shadow  never  grow  less!     I   like 


SPRING  97 

him,  as  I  like  tlie  crow.  Health  and  long 
life  to  both  of  them,  —  wildings  that  will 
not  be  put  down  nor  driven  into  the  outer 
wilderness,  be  the  hand  of  civilization  never 
so  hostile.  They  were  here  before  man 
came,  and  wiU  be  here,  it  is  most  likely, 
after  he  is  gone ;  unless,  as  the  old  planet's 
fires  go  out,  man  himself  becomes  a  hiberna- 
tor.  I  have  heard  a  hunted  woodchuck,  at 
bay  in  a  stone  wall,  gnasliing  liis  teeth 
against  a  dog;  and  I  have  seen  a  mother 
woodchuck  with  a  litter  of  young  ones  play- 
ing about  her  as  she  lay  at  full  length  sun- 
ning herself,  the  very  picture  of  maternal 
satisfaction :  and  my  belief  is  that  wood- 
chucks  have  as  honest  a  right  as  most  of  us 
to  life,  hberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
As  I  walked  under  the  willows,  —  empty 
to-day,  though  I  remembered  more  than  one 
happy  occasion  when,  in  better  company, 
I  had  found  them  alive  with  wings,  —  I 
paused  to  look  through  the  branches  at  a 
large  hawk  and  a  few  glossy-backed  barn 
swallows  quartermg  over  the  meadow. 
Then,  all  at  once,  there  fell  on  my  ears  a 
shower   of  bobolink   notes,  and   the  birds, 


98  FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

twenty  or  more  together,  dropped  into  the 
short  grass  before  me.  Every  one  of  them 
was  a  male. 

A  strange  custom  it  is,  this  Quakerish 
separation  of  the  sexes.  It  must  be  the  fe- 
males' work,  I  imagine.  Modesty  and  bash- 
fulness  are  feminine  traits,  —  modesty,  bash- 
fulness,  and  maidenly  discretion.  The  wise 
virgin  shunneth  even  the  appearance  of 
evil.  Let  the  males  flock  by  themselves, 
and  travel  in  advance.  And  the  males 
practice  obedience,  not  for  virtue's  sake,  I 
guess,  but  of  necessity ;  encouraged,  no 
doubt,  by  an  unquestioning  belief  that  the 
wise  virgins  will  come  trooping  after,  and 
be  found  scattered  conveniently  over  the 
meadows,  each  by  herself,  when  the  mar- 
riage bell  strikes.  That  blissful  hour  was 
now  close  at  hand,  and  my  twenty  gay  bach- 
elors knew  it.  Every  bird  of  them  had 
on  his  wedding  garment.  No  wonder  they 
sang. 

It  took  me  a  long  time  to  make  that  haK 
mile  on  the  u]3per  road,  with  the  narrow, 
freshly  green  valley  outspread  just  below, 
the  river  running  through   it,  and  beyond 


SPRING  99 

a  royal  horizonf  ul  of  mountains  ;  some  near 
and  green,  some  farther  away  and  blue,  and 
some  —  tlie  highest  —  still  with  the  snow  on 
them;  Moosilauke,  Kinsman,  Cannon,  La- 
fayette, Garfield,  the  Twins,  Washington, 
Clay,  Jefferson,  and  Adams  ;  all  perfectly 
clear,  the  sky  covered  with  high  clouds.  A 
sober  day  it  was,  sober  and  still,  though  the 
bobolinks  seemed  not  so  to  regard  it.  While 
I  looked  at  the  landscape,  seating  myself 
now  and  then  to  enjoy  it  quietly,  I  kept  an 
ear  open  for  the  shout  of  a  pileated  wood- 
pecker, a  wildly  musical  sound  often  to  be 
heard  on  this  hillside ;  but  to-day  there  was 
nothing  nearer  to  it  than  a  crested  fly- 
catcher's scream,  out  of  the  big  sugar  or- 
chard. 

On  my  way  down  the  hill  toward  the  red 
bridge,  I  met  a  man  riding  in  some  kind  of 
rude  contrivance,  not  to  be  called  a  wagon 
or  a  cart,  between  two  pairs  of  wheels.  He 
lay  flat  on  his  back,  as  in  a  hammock,  and, 
to  judge  by  his  tools  and  the  mortar  on  his 
clothing,  must  have  been  a  mason  returning 
from  his  work.  He  was  "  taking  it  easy," 
at  all  events.     We  saluted  each  other,  and 


100        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

he  stopped  his  horse  and  sat  up.  "You 
used  to  be  round  here,  did  n't  you  ? "  he 
asked.  Yes,  I  said,  I  had  been  here  a  good 
deal,  off  and  on.  He  thought  he  remem- 
bered me.  He  had  noticed  me  getting  out  of 
Mr.  Prime's  carriage  at  the  corner.  "  Let 's 
see,"  he  said :  "  you  used  to  be  looking  after 
the  birds  a  good  deal,  didn't  you?"  I 
pleaded  guilty,  and  he  seemed  glad.  "  You 
are  well?"  he  added,  and  drove  on.  Neither 
of  us  had  said  anything  in  particular,  but 
there  are  few  events  of  the  road  more  to  my 
taste  than  such  chance  bits  of  neighborly 
intercourse.  The  man's  tone  and  manner 
gave  me  the  feeling  of  real  friendliness.  If 
I  had  fallen  among  thieves,  I  confide  that 
he  would  have  been  neither  a  priest  nor  a 
Levite.  May  his  trowel  find  plenty  of  work 
and  fair  wages. 

This  was  on  May  22.  The  next  three 
days  were  occupied  with  all-day  excursions 
to  Mount  Agassiz,  to  Streeter  Pond,  and  to 
Lonesome  Lake  path.  With  so  many  hands 
beckoning  to  me,  the  Cape  May  warbler 
was  well-nigh  forgotten.  On  the  morning 
of  the  26th,  however,  the  weather  being  du- 


SPRING  101 

bions,  I  betook  myself  again  to  the  Landaff 
swamp,  entering  it,  as  usual,  by  the  wood 
road  at  the  barn.  Many  birds  were  there  : 
a  tanager  (uncommon  hereabout),  olive- 
sided  flycatchers,  alder  flycatchers  (fii-st 
seen  on  the  23d,  and  already  abundant),  a 
yellow-bellied  flycatcher  (the  recluse  of  the 
family),  magnolia  warblers,  Canada  war- 
blers, parula  warblers  (three  beautiful  spe- 
cies), a  Tennessee  warbler,  a  Swainson 
thrush  (whistling),  a  veery  (snarling),  and 
many  more.  The  Swainson  thrush,  by  the 
way,  although  present,  in  small  numbers 
apparently,  from  May  22,  was  not  heard  to 
sing  a  note  until  June  1,  —  ten  days  of  si- 
lence !  Yet  it  sings  freely  on  its  migration, 
even  as  far  south  as  Georgia.  Close  at  hand 
was  a  grouse,  who  performed  again  and 
again  in  what  seemed  to  me  a  highly  origi- 
nal manner.  First  he  delivered  three  or 
four  quick  beats.  Then  he  rested  for  a 
second  or  two,  after  which  he  proceeded  to 
drum  in  the  ordinary  way,  beginning  with 
deliberation,  and  gradually  accelerating  the 
beats,  till  the  ear  could  no  longer  follow 
them,  and  they  became  a  whir.     That  pre- 


102        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

lude  of  four  quick,  decisive  strokes  was  a 
novelty  to  my  ears,  so  far  as  I  could  re- 
member. 

I  had  taken  my  fill  of  this  pleasant  chorus, 
and  was  on  my  way  back  to  the  road,  wlien 
suddenly  I  heard  something  that  was  better 
than  "pleasant,"  —  a  peculiarly  faint  and 
listless  four-syllabled  warbler  song,  which 
mio:ht  be  described  as  a  monotonous  zee-zee- 
zee-zee.  The  singer  was  not  a  blackpoll :  of 
that  I  felt  certain  on  the  instant.  What 
could  it  be,  then,  but  a  Cape  May?  That 
was  a  shrewd  guess  (I  had  heard  the  Cape 
May  once,  in  Virginia,  some  years  before)  ; 
for  presently  the  fellow  moved  into  sight, 
and  I  had  a  feast  of  admiring  him,  as  he 
flitted  about  among  the  fir  trees,  feeding  and 
singing.  If  he  was  the  one  I  had  seen  in 
the  same  wood  on  the  2 2d,  he  was  making 
a  long  stay.  StiU  I  did  not  venture  to  think 
of  him  as  anything  but  a  migrant.  The 
Tennessee  had  sung  incessantly  for  five  days 
in  the  Gale  River  larches  near  the  hotel,  as 
already  mentioned,  and  then  had  taken 
flight. 

The  next  morning,  nevertheless,  there  was 


SPRING  103 

nothing  for  it  —  few  as  my  days  were  grow- 
ing—  but  1  must  visit  the  place  again,  on 
the  chance  of  finding  the  Cape  May  still 
there.  And  he  was]  there  ;  sitting,  for  part 
of  the  time,  at  the  very  tip  (on  the  terminal 
bud,  to  speak  exactly)  of  a  pointed  fir. 
There,  as  elsewhere,  he  sang  persistently, 
sometimes  with  three  sees,  sometimes  with 
four,  but  always  in  an  unhurried  monotone. 
It  was  the  simplest  and  most  primitive  kind 
of  music,  to  say  the  best  of  it,  —  many  an 
insect  would  perhaps  have  done  as  well ;  but 
somehow,  with  the  author  of  it  before  me,  I 
pronounced  it  good.  A  Tennessee  was  close 
by,  and  (what  I  particularly  enjoyed)  a  tan- 
ager  sat  in  the  sun  on  the  topmost  spray 
of  a  tall  white  pine,  blazing  and  singing. 
"  This  is  the  sixth  day  of  the  Cape  May  here, 
yet  I  cannot  think  he  means  to  summer." 
So  my  pencil  finished  the  day's  entry. 

AYhatever  his  intentions,  I  could  not  af- 
ford to  spend  my  whole  vacation  in  learning 
them,  and  it  was  not  until  the  afternoon  of 
the  31st  that  I  went  again  in  search  of 
him.  Then  he  gave  me  an  exciting  chase  ; 
for,  thank  Fortune,  a  chase  may  be  exciting 


104        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

thougli  the  bird  is  not  a  "  game  bird,"  and 
tbe  man  is  not  a  gunner.  At  first,  to  be 
sure,  tlie  question  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  be 
quickly  settled.  I  was  hardly  in  the  swamp 
before  I  heard  the  expected  zee-zee.  The 
bird  was  still  here !  But  after  haH  a  dozen 
repetitions  of  the  strain  he  fell  silent ;  and 
he  had  not  shown  himself.  For  a  full  hour 
I  paced  up  and  down  the  path,  within  a  space 
of  forty  rods,  fighting  mosquitoes  and  awake 
to  every  sound.  If  the  bird  was  here,  I 
meant  to  make  sure  of  him.  This  was  the 
tenth  day  since  I  had  first  seen  him,  and  to 
find  him  still  present  woidd  make  it  practi- 
cally certam  that  he  was  here  for  the  season. 
As  for  what  I  had  already  heard,  —  well,  the 
notes  were  the  Cape  May's,  fast  enough; 
but  if  that  were  all,  I  should  go  away  and 
straightway  begin  to  question  whether  my 
ears  had  not  deceived  me.  In  matters  of 
this  kind,  an  ornithologist  walks  by  sight. 

Once,  from  farther  up  the  path,  I  heard  a 
voice  that  might  be  the  one  I  was  listening 
for  ;  but  as  I  hastened  toward  it,  it  developed 
into  the  homely,  twisting  song  of  a  black-and- 
white  creeper.     Heard   at   a   suSicient  dis- 


SPRING  105 

tance,  this  too  familiar  ditty  loses  every  other 
one  of  its  notes,  and  is  easily  mistaken  for 
something  else,  —  especially  if  something 
else  happens  to  be  on  a  man's  mind,  — as  I 
had  found  to  my  chagrin  on  more  than  one 
occasion.  Eye  and  ear  both  are  never  more 
liable  to  momentary  deception  than  when 
they  are  most  tensely  alert. 

Meanwhile,  nothing  had  been  heard  of  the 
Tennessee,  and  it  became  evident  that  he 
had  moved  on.  The  customary  water  thrush 
was  singing  at  short  intervals  ;  gayly  di^essed 
warblers  darted  in  and  out  of  the  low  ever- 
greens, almost  brushing  my  elbows,  much  to 
their  surprise  ;  and  an  olive-sided  flycatcher 
kept  up  a  persistent  pip-pijj.  Something 
was  troubling  his  equanimity ;  I  had  no  idea 
what.  It  had  been  one  of  my  special  enjoy- 
ments, on  tliis  vacation  trip,  to  renew  my 
acquaintance  with  him  and  his  humbler  rela- 
tive, the  alder  flycatcher,  —  the  latter  a  com- 
monplace body,  whose  emphatic  quay-queer 
had  now  become  one  of  the  commonest  of 
sounds.  The  olive-side,  by  the  bye,  for  all 
his  apparent  wildness,  did  not  disdain  to  visit 
the  shade  trees  about  the  hotel ;  and  once  a 


106        FOOTING   IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

catbird,  not  far  off,  amused  me  by  whistling 
a  most  exact  reproduction  of  his  breezy  qidt^ 
quee-quee-o.  If  the  voice  had  come  from  a 
treetop  instead  of  from  the  depths  of  a  low 
thicket,  the  illusion  would  have  been  com- 
plete. It  is  the  weakness  of  imitators,  al- 
ways and  everywhere,  to  forget  one  thing  or 
another. 

Still  the  bird  I  was  waiting  for  made  no 
sign,  and  finally  I  left  the  swamp  and  started 
up  the  road.  Possibly  he  had  gone  in  that 
direction,  where  I  first  saw  him.  No,  he  was 
not  there,  and,  giving  over  the  hunt,  I  turned 
back  toward  the  village.  Then,  as  I  came 
opposite  the  barn  again,  I  heard  the  notes  in 
the  old  place,  and  hastened  up  the  path. 
This  time  I  was  lucky,  for  there  the  bird  sat 
on  the  outermost  spray  of  a  fir-tree  branch. 
It  was  his  most  characteristic  attitude.  I 
can  see  him  there  now. 

As  I  quitted  the  swamp  for  good,  a  man 
in  a  buggy  was  coming  down  the  road.  I 
put  on  my  coat,  and  as  he  overtook  me  I  said, 
"  I  was  putting  on  my  coat  because  I  felt 
sure  you  would  invite  me  to  ride."  He 
smiled,  and  bade  me  get  in ;  and  though  he 


SPRING  107 

had  been  going  only  to  the  post  office,  he 
insisted  upon  carrying  me  to  the  hotel,  a  mile 
beyond.  Better  still,  we  had  a  pleasant,  hu- 
manizing talk  of  a  kind  to  be  serviceable  to 
a  narrow  specialist,  such  as  I  seemed  just 
now  in  danger  of  becoming.  The  use  of 
tobacco  was  one  of  our  topics,  I  remember, 
and  the  mutual  duties  of  husbands  and  wives 
another.  My  host  had  seen  a  good  deal  of 
the  world,  it  appeared,  and  withal  was  no 
little  of  a  philosopher.  I  hope  it  will  not 
sound  egotistical  if  I  say  that  he  gave  every 
sign  of  finding  me  a  capable  listener. 

Once  more  only  I  saw  the  Cape  May.  His 
claim  to  be  accounted  a  summer  resident  of 
Franconia  was  by  this  time  moderately  well 
established ;  but  on  my  last  spare  afternoon 
(June  3)  I  could  not  do  less  than  pay  him  a 
farewell  visit.  After  looking  for  him  in  vain 
for  twenty  years  (I  speak  as  a  New  Eng- 
lander),  it  seemed  the  part  of  prudence  to 
cultivate  his  acquaintance  while  I  could.  At 
the  entrance  to  the  swamp,  therefore,  I  put 
on  my  gloves,  tied  a  handkerchief  about  my 
neck,  and  broke  a  stem  of  meadow-sweet  for 
use  as  a  mosquito  switch.     The  season  was 


108        FOOTING  IT    IN  FRANCONIA 

advancing,  and  field  ornithology  was  becom- 
ing more  and  more  a  battle.  I  walked  up 
the  path  for  the  usual  distance  (passing  a 
few  lady's-slippers,  one  of  them  pure  white) 
without  hearing  the  voice  for  which  I  was  lis- 
tening. On  the  return,  however,  I  caught 
it,  or  something  like  it.  Then,  as  I  went  in 
pursuit  (a  slow  process,  for  caution's  sake), 
the  song  turned,  or  seemed  to  turn,  into 
something  different,  —  louder,  longer,  and 
faster.  Is  that  the  same  bird,  I  thought,  or 
another?  Whatever  it  was,  it  eluded  my 
eye,  and  after  a  little  the  voice  ceased.  I 
retreated  to  the  path,  where  I  could  look 
about  me  more  readily  and  use  my  switch  to 
better  advantage,  and  anon  the  faint,  lazy 
zee-zee-zee  was  heard  again.  This  was  the 
Cape  May,  at  aU  events.  I  was  sure  of  it. 
Still  I  wanted  a  look.  Carefully  I  edged 
toward  the  sound,  bending  aside  the  branches, 
and  all  at  once  a  bird  flew  into  the  spruce 
over  my  head.  Then  began  again  the 
quicker,  four-syUabled  zip-zi}^.  I  craned  my 
neck  and  fanned  away  mosquitoes,  all  the 
while  keeping  my  glass  in  position.  A  twig 
stirred.     Still  the  bird  sang  unseen,  —  the 


SPRING  109 

same  hurried  phrase,  not  quite  monotonous, 
since  the  pitch  rose  a  little  on  the  last  coup- 
let. That  was  a  suspicious  circumstance, 
and  by  this  time  I  should  not  have  been 
mightily  astonished  if  a  Blackburnian  had 
disclosed  himself.  Another  twig  stirred. 
Still  I  could  see  nothing ;  and  still  I  fought 
mosquitoes  (a  plague  on  them !)  and  kept 
my  eye  steady.  Then  the  fellow  did  again 
what  he  had  done  so  often,  —  stepped  out 
upon  a  flat,  horizontal  branch,  pretty  well 
up,  and  posed  there,  singing  and  preening 
his  feathers.  I  could  see  his  yellow  breast 
streaked  with  jet,  his  black  crown,  his  red- 
dish cheeks,  with  the  yellow  patch  behind 
the  rufous,  and  finally  the  big  white  blotch 
on  the  wing.  We  have  lovelier  birds,  no 
doubt  (the  Cape  May's  colors  are  a  trifle 
"  splashy  "  for  a  nice  taste,  —  for  my  own 
taste,  I  mean  to  say),  but  few,  if  any,  whose 
costume  is  more  strikingly  original. 

I  stayed  by  him  till  my  patience  failed, 
the  mosquitoes  helping  to  wear  it  out ;  and 
all  the  while  he  reiterated  that  comparatively 
lively  zip-zip,  so  very  different  from  the  list- 
less zee-zee,  which  I  had  seen  him  use  on  pre- 


110        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

vious  occasions,  and  had  heard  him  use  to- 
day. He  was  singing  now,  I  said  to  myself, 
more  like  the  bird  at  Natural  Bridge,  the 
only  other  one  I  had  ever  heard.  It  was 
pleasant  to  find  that  even  this  tenth-rate  per- 
former, one  of  the  poorest  of  a  poor  family, 
had  more  than  one  tune  in  his  music  box. 

My  spring  vacation  was  planned  to  be 
botanical  rather  than  ornithological  ;  but  we 
are  not  the  masters  of  our  own  fate,  though 
we  sometimes  try  to  think  so,  and  my  sketch 
is  turning  out  a  bird  piece,  after  all.  The 
truth  is,  I  was  in  the  birds'  country,  and  it 
was  the  birds'  hour.  They  waked  me  every 
morning,  —  veeries,  bobolinks,  vireos,  spar- 
rows, and  what  not ;  ^  and  as  the  day  began, 

1  I  made  the  following  list  of  fifty  odd  species  heard 
and  seen  either  from  my  windows  or  from  the  piazza : 
bluebird,  robin,  veery,  hermit  thrush,  olive-backed  thrush, 
chickadee,  Canadian  nuthatch,  catbird,  oven-bird,  water 
thrush,  chestnut-sided  warbler,  myrtle  warbler,  redstart, 
Nashville  warbler,  blue  yellow-backed  warbler,  Maryland 
yellow-throat,  warbling  vireo,  red-eyed  vireo,  cedar-bird, 
barn  swallow,  cliff  swallow,  sand  swallow,  tree  swallow, 
goldfinch,  purple  finch,  pine  finch,  red  crossbill,  indigo- 
bird,  snowbird,  song  sparrow,  field  sparrow,  chipping 
sparrow,  vesper  sparrow,  white-throated  sparrow,  Balti- 
more oriole,  bobolink,  red-winged  blackbird,  crow,  blue 
jay,  kingbird,  phcebe,   least  flycatcher,  olive-sided  fly- 


SPRING  111 

so  it  continued.  I  hope  I  was  not  blind  to 
other  things.  I  remember  at  this  moment 
how  rejoiced  I  was  at  coming  all  unexpect- 
edly upon  a  little  bunch  of  yellow  lady's- 
slippers,  —  nine  blossoms,  I  believe  ;  rare 
enough  and  pretty  enough  to  excite  the  dull- 
est man's  enthusiasm.  But  the  fact  remains, 
if  comparisons  are  to  be  insisted  upon,  that 
a  creature  like  the  Cape  May  warbler  has 
all  the  beauty  of  a  flower,  with  the  added 
charm  of  voice  and  motion  and  elusiveness. 
The  lady's-slippers  would  wait  for  me,  —  un- 
less somebody  else  picked  them,  —  but  the 
warbler  could  be  trusted  to  lead  me  a  chase, 
and  give  me,  as  the  saying  is,  a  run  for  my 
money.  In  other  words,  he  was  more  inter- 
esting, and  goes  better  into  a  story. 

My  delight  in  him  was  the  greater  for  a 
consideration  yet  to  be  specified.  Twelve  or 
thirteen  years  ago,  when  a  party  of  us  were 
in  Franconia  in  June,  we  undertook  a  list  of 
the  birds  of  the  township,  —  a  list  which  the 
scientific  ornithologist  of  the  company  after- 
catcher,  alder  flycatcher,  great-crested  flycatcher,  wood 
pewee,  hummingbird,  chimney  swift,  whip-poor-will, 
flicker,  kingfisher,  black-billed  cuckoo. 


112        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

ward  printed.^  Now,  returning  to  the  place 
by  myself,  it  became  a  point  of  honor  with 
me  to  improve  our  work  by  the  addition  of 
at  least  a  name  or  two.  And  the  first  candi- 
date was  the  Cape  May. 

The  second  was  of  a  widely  different  sort ; 
one  of  my  most  familiar  friends,  though  more 
surprising  as  a  bird  of  the  White  Mountains 
than  even  the  Cape  May.  I  speak  of  the 
wood  thrush,  the  most  southern  member  of 
the  noble  group  of  singers  to  which  it  be- 
longs,—  the  Hylocichloe^  so  called.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  we  have  no  collective  Eng- 
lish name  for  them,  especially  as  their  vocal 
quality  —  by  which  I  mean  something  not 
quite  the  same  as  musical  ability  —  is  such 
as  to  set  them  beyond  comparison  above  all 
other  birds  of  North  America,  if  not  of  the 
world. 

My  first  knowledge  of  this  piece  of  good 
fortune  was  on  the  29  th  of  May.  I  stood 
on  the  Notch  railway,  intent  upon  a  mourn- 
ing warbler,  noting  how  fond  of  red-cherry 
trees  he  and  his  fellows  seemingly  were, 
when  I  was  startled  out  of   measure  by  a 

1  The  Auk,  vol.  v.  p.  151. 


SPRING  113 

wood  thrush's  voice  from  the  dense  maple 
woods  above  me.  There  was  no  time  to  look 
for  him;  and  happily  there  was  no  need. 
He  was  one  of  the  consummate  artists  of  his 
race  (among  the  members  of  which  there  is 
great  unevenness  in  this  regard),  possessing 
all  those  unmistakable  peculiarities  which  at 
once  distinguish  the  wood  thrush's  song  from 
the  hermit's,  with  which  alone  a  careless  lis- 
tener might  confound  it:  the  sudden  drop 
to  a  deep  contralto  (the  most  glorious  bit  of 
vocalism  to  be  heard  in  our  woods),  and  the 
tinkle  or  spray  of  bell-like  tones  at  the  other 
extreme  of  the  gamut.  As  with  the  Cape 
May,  so  with  him,  the  question  was,  Will  he 
stay? 

Two  days  later  I  came  down  the  track 
again.  A  hermit  was  in  tune,  and  presently 
a  wood  thrush  joined  him.  "  His  tone  is 
fuller  and  louder  than  the  hermit's,"  says 
my  pencil,  —  flattered,  no  doubt,  at  finding 
itself  in  a  position  to  speak  a  word  of  mo- 
mentary positiveness  touching  a  question  of 
superiority  long  in  dispute,  and  likely  to  re- 
main in  dispute  while  birds  sing  and  men 
listen  to  them.     A  quarter  of  a  mile  farther. 


114        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

and  I  came  to  the  sugar  grove.  Here  a  sec- 
ond bird  was  singing,  just  where  I  had  heard 
him  two  days  before.  Him  I  sat  down  to 
enjoy  ;  and  at  that  moment,  probably  because 
he  had  seen  me  (and  had  seen  me  stop),  he 
broke  out  with  a  volley  of  those  quick,  stac- 
cato, inimitably  emphatic,  whip-snapping 
calls,  — pijo-pip^  —  which  are  more  charac- 
teristic of  the  species  than  even  the  song  it- 
self. So  there  were  two  male  wood  thrushes, 
and  presumably  two  pairs,  in  this  mountain- 
side forest ! 

On  the  1st  of  June  I  heard  the  song  there 
again,  though  I  was  forced  to  wait  for  it ; 
and  three  days  afterward  the  story  was  the 
same.  I  ought  to  have  looked  for  nests,  but 
time  failed  me.  To  the  best  of  my  know- 
ledge, the  bird  has  never  been  reported 
before  from  the  White  Mountain  region, 
though  it  is  well  known  to  breed  in  some 
parts  of  Canada,  where  I  have  myself  seen 
it. 

Here,  then,  were  two  notable  accessions  to 
our  local  catalogue.  The  only  others  (a  few 
undoubted  migrants  —  Wilson's  black-cap 
warbler,  the  white-crowned  sparrow,  and  the 


SPRING  115 

solitary  sandpiper — being  omitted)  were  a 
single  meadow  lark  and  a  single  yellow- 
throated  vireo.  The  lark  seemed  to  be  un- 
known to  Franconia  people,  and  my  speci- 
men may  have  been  only  a  straggler.  He 
sang  again  and  again  on  May  22,  but  I 
heard  nothing  from  him  afterward,  though  I 
passed  the  place  often.  The  vireo  was  sing- 
ing in  a  sugar  grove  on  the  3d  of  June,  — 
a  date  on  which,  accidents  apart,  he  should 
certainly  have  been  at  home  for  the  summer. 
Because  I  have  had  so  much  to  say  about 
the  Cape  May  warbler  and  the  wood  thrush, 
it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  I  mean  to  set 
them  in  the  first  place,  nor  even  that  I  had 
in  them  the  highest  pleasure.  They  sur- 
prised me,  and  surprise  is  always  more  talk- 
ative than  simple  appreciation  ;  but  the  birds 
that  ministered  most  to  my  enjoyment  were 
the  hermit  and  the  veery.  The  veery  is  not 
an  every-day  singer  with  me  at  home,  and 
the  hermit,  for  some  years  past,  has  made 
himself  almost  a  stranger.  I  hardly  know 
which  of  the  two  put  me  under  the  greater 
obligation.  The  veery  sang  almost  continu- 
ally, and  a  good  veery  is  a  singer  almost  out 


116        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

of  competition.  His  voice  lacks  the  ring  of 
the  wood  thrush's  and  the  hermit's  ;  it  never 
dominates  the  choir;  but  with  the  coppice 
to  itself  and  the  listener  close  by,  it  has 
sometimes  a  quality  irresistible ;  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  characterize  it  as  angelic.  Of 
this  kind  was  the  voice  of  a  bird  that  used 
to  sing  under  my  Franconia  window  at  half 
past  three  o'clock,  in  the  silence  of  the 
morning. 

The  surpassing  glory  of  the  veery's  song, 
as  all  lovers  of  American  bird  music  may  be 
presumed  by  this  time  to  know,  Kes  in  its 
harmonic,  double-stopping  effect,  —  an  ef- 
fect, or  quality,  as  beautiful  as  it  is  peculiar. 
One  day,  while  I  stood  listening  to  it  under 
the  best  of  conditions,  admiring  the  wonder- 
ful arpeggio  (I  know  no  less  technical  word 
for  it),  my  pencil  suddenly  grew  poetic. 
"  The  veery's  fingers  are  quick  on  the  harp- 
strings,"  it  wrote.  His  is  perfect  Sunday 
music,  —  and  the  hermit's  no  less  so.  And 
in  the  same  class  I  should  put  the  simple 
chants  of  the  field  sparrow  and  the  vesper. 
The  so-called  "  preaching  "  of  the  red-eyed 
vireo  is  utter  worldliness  in  the  comparison. 


SPRING  117 

Happy  Franconia!  This  year,  if  never 
before,  it  had  all  five  of  our  New  England 
Hylocichlae  singing  in  its  woods  :  the  veery 
and  the  hermit  everywhere  in  the  lower 
country,  the  wood  thrush  in  the  maple  for- 
est before  mentioned,  the  olive-back  through- 
out the  Notch  and  its  neighborhood,  and  the 
gray-cheek  on  Lafayette ;  a  quintette  hard 
to  match,  I  venture  to  think,  anjrwhere 
on  the  footstool.  And  after  them  —  I  do 
not  say  with  them  —  were  winter  wrens, 
bobolinks,  rose-breasted  grosbeaks,  purple 
finches,  solitary  vireos,  vesper  sparrows,  field 
sparrows,  white-throated  sparrows,  song  spar- 
rows, catbirds,  robins,  orioles,  tanagers,  and 
a  score  or  two  beside. 

One  other  bright  circumstance  I  am 
bound  in  honor  to  speak  of,  —  the  abun- 
dance of  swallows  ;  a  state  of  affairs  greatly 
unlike  anything  to  be  met  with  in  my  part 
of  Massachusetts:  cliff  swallows  and  bam 
swallows  in  crowds,  and  sand  martins  and 
tree  swallows  by  no  means  uncommon.  But 
for  the  absence  of  black  martins,  —  a  fa- 
mous colony  of  which  the  tourist  may  see  at 
Concord,  while  the  train  waits, — here  would 


118        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

have  been  a  second  quintette  worthy  to  rank 
with  the  thrushes  ;  the  flight  of  one  set  be- 
ing as  beautiful,  not  to  say  as  musical,  as 
the  songs  of  the  other.  As  it  was,  the  uni- 
versal presence  of  these  aerial  birds  was  a 
continual  delight  to  any  man  with  eyes  to 
notice  it.  They  glorified  the  open  valley  as 
the  thrushes  glorified  the  woods. 

We  shall  never  again  see  the  like  of  this, 
I  fear,  in  our  prosier  Boston  neighborhood. 
"Within  my  time  —  within  twenty  years,  in- 
deed —  barn  swallows  summered  freely  on 
Beacon  Hill,  plastering  their  nests  against 
the  walls  of  the  State  House  and  the  Athe- 
naeum, and  even  under  the  busy  portico  of 
the  Tremont  House.  I  have  remembrance, 
too,  of  a  pair  that  dwelt,  for  one  season  at 
least,  above  the  door  of  the  old  Ticknor 
mansion,  at  the  head  of  Park  Street.  Those 
days  are  gone.  Now,  alas,  even  in  the  sub- 
urban districts,  we  may  almost  say  that 
one  swallow  makes  a  summer.  An  evil 
change  it  is,  for  which  not  even  the  war- 
blings  of  English  sparrows  will  ever  quite 
console  me.  Yet  the  present  state  of  things, 
the  reoccupation  of  Boston  by  the  British, 


SPRING  119 

if  you  please  to  call  it  so,  is  not  without  its 
grain  of  compensation.  It  makes  me  fonder 
of  "  old  Francony."  Skeptic  or  man  of 
faith,  naturalist  or  supernaturalist,  who  does 
not  like  to  feel  that  there  is  somewhere  a 
"  better  country  "  than  the  one  he  lives  in  ? 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE 

THE  FORENOON 

"  The  air  that  floated  by  me  seem'd  to  say, 
*  Write !  thou  wilt  never  have  a  better  day.' 
And  so  I  did." 

Kbats. 

All  signs  threatened  a  day  of  midsum- 
mer heat,  though  it  was  only  the  2d  of 
June.  Before  breakfast,  even,  the  news 
seemed  to  have  got  abroad ;  so  that  there 
was  something  hke  a  dearth  of  music  under 
my  windows,  where  heretofore  there  had 
been  almost  a  surfeit.  The  warbling  vii;^o 
in  the  poplar,  which  had  teased  my  ear 
morning  after  morning,  getting  shamelessly 
in  the  way  of  his  betters,  had  for  once  fallen 
silent ;  unless,  indeed,  he  had  sung  his  stint 
before  I  woke,  or  had  gone  elsewhere  to 
practice.  The  comparative  stillness  enabled 
me  to  hear  voices  from  the  hillside  across 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  121 

the  meadow,  while  I  turned  over  in  my 
mind  a  thought  concerning  the  nature  of 
those  sounds  —  a  class  by  themselves,  some 
of  them  by  no  means  unmusical  —  which 
are  particularly  enjoyable  when  borne  to  us 
from  a  distance:  crow  voices,  the  baying  of 
hounds,  cowbell  tinkles,  and  the  like.  The 
nasal,  high-pitched,  penetrating  call  of  the 
little  Canadian  nuthatch  is  one  of  the  best 
examples  of  what  I  mean.  Anh^  ank :  the 
sounds  issue  from  the  depths  of  tracldess 
woods,  miles  and  miles  away  as  it  seems,  just 
reaching  us,  without  a  breath  to  spare ;  dy- 
ing upon  the  very  tympanum,  like  a  spent 
rimner  who  drops  exhausted  at  the  goal, 
touching  it  only  with  his  finger  tips.  Yet 
the  ear  is  not  fretted.  It  makes  no  attempt 
to  hear  more.  Ank,  ank :  that  is  the  whole 
story,  and  we  see  the  bird  as  plainly  as  if  he 
hung  from  a  cone  at  the  top  of  the  next  fir 
tree. 

"No  tramping  to-day,"  said  my  friends 
from  the  cottage  as  we  met  at  table.  They 
had  been  reading  the  thermometer,  which  is 
the  modern  equivalent  for  observing  the 
wind   and   regarding  the  clouds.     But  my 


122        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

vacation,  unlike  theirs,  was  not  an  all-sum- 
mer affair.  It  was  fast  running  out,  and 
there  were  stiU  many  things  to  be  seen  and 
done.  Immediately  after  breakfast,  there- 
fore, with  an  umbrella  and  a  luncheon,  I 
started  for  the  Notch.  I  would  reverse  the 
usual  route,  going  by  way  of  the  railroad 

—  reached  by  a  woodland  trail  above 
"  Chase's  "  —  and  returning  by  the  highway. 
Of  itself  this  is  only  a  forenoon's  jaunt,  but 
I  meant  to  piece  it  out  by  numerous  waits 

—  for  coolness  and  listening  —  and  sundry 
by-excursions,  especially  by  a  search  for 
Selkirk's  violet  and  an  hour  or  two  on  Bald 
Mountain.  If  the  black  flies  and  the  mos- 
quitoes would  let  me  choose  my  own  gait, 
I  would  risk  the  danger  of  sunstroke. 

As  I  come  out  upon  the  grassy  plain, 
after  the  first  bit  of  sharp  ascent,  a  pleasant 
breeze  is  stirring,  and  with  the  umbrella 
over  my  head,  and  a  halt  as  often  as  the 
shade  of  a  tree,  the  sight  of  a  flower,  or  the 
sound  of  music  invites  me,  I  go  on  with 
great  comfort.  Now  I  am  detained  by  a 
close  bed  of  dwarf  cornel,  every  face  looking 
straight  upward,  the  waxen  white  "flowers  " 


A  DAY  m  JUNE  123 

inclosing  each  a  bunch  of  dark  pin-points. 
Now  a  lovely  clear-winged  moth  hovers  over 
a  dandelion  head ;  and  a  pleasing  sight  it  is, 
to  see  his  transparent  wings  beating  them- 
selves into  a  haze  about  his  brown  body. 
And  now,  by  way  of  contrast,  one  of  our 
tiny  sky-blue  butterflies  rises  from  the 
ground  and  with  a  pretty  unsteadiness  flits 
carelessly  before  me,  twinkling  over  the 
sand. 

A  bluebird  drops  into  the  white  birch 
under  which  I  am  standing,  and  lets  fall  a 
few  notes  of  his  contralto  warble.  A  deli- 
cious voice.  For  purity  and  a  certain  affec- 
tionateness  it  would  be  hard  to  name  its 
superior.  A  vesper  sparrow  sings  from  the 
grass  land ;  and  from  the  woods  beyond  a 
jay  is  screaming.  His,  by  the  bye,  is  an- 
other of  the  voices  that  are  bettered  by  dis- 
tance, although,  for  my  own  part,  I  like  the 
ring  of  it,  near  or  far.  Now  a  song  sparrow 
breaks  out  in  his  breezy,  characteristically 
abrupt  manner.  He  is  a  bird  with  fine  gifts 
of  cheeriness  and  versatility  ;  but  when  he 
sets  himseK  against  the  vesper,  as  now,  it  is 
like  prose  against  poetry,  plain  talk  against 


124        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

music.  So  it  seems  to  me  at  tliis  moment, 
I  mean  to  say.  At  another  time,  in  another 
mood,  I  might  tone  down  the  comparison, 
though  I  could  never  say  less  than  that  the 
vesper  is  my  favorite.  His  gifts  are  sweet- 
ness and  perfection. 

So  I  cross  the  level  fields  to  Chase's,  where 
I  stand  a  few  minutes  before  the  little  front- 
yard  flower-garden,  always  with  many  pretty 
things  in  it.  One  of  those  natural  garden- 
ers, the  good  woman  must  be,  who  have  a 
knack  of  making  plants  blossom.  And  just 
beyond,  in  the  shelter  of  the  first  tree,  I  stop 
again  to  take  off  my  hat,  put  down  my  um- 
brella, and  speak  coaxingly  to  a  suspicious 
pointer  (being  a  friend  of  all  dogs  except 
surly  ones),  which  after  much  backing  and 
filling  gets  his  cool  nose  into  my  palm.  We 
are  on  excellent  terms,  I  flatter  myself,  but 
at  that  moment  some  notion  strikes  me  and 
I  take  out  my  notebook  and  pencil.  In- 
stantly he  starts  away  and  sets  up  a  furious 
bark,  looking  first  at  me,  then  toward  the 
house,  circling  about  me  all  the  while,  at  a 
rod's  distance,  in  a  quiver  of  excitement. 
"  Help  !  help !  "  he  cries.     "  Here  's  a  villain 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  125 

of  some  sort.  I  've  never  seen  tlie  like.  A 
spy  at  the  very  least."  And  though  he  quiets 
down  when  I  put  up  the  book,  there  is  no  more 
friendliness  for  this  time.  Man  writing,  as 
Carlyle  would  have  said,  is  a  doubtful  char- 
acter. 

Another  stage,  to  the  edge  of  the  woods, 
and  I  rest  again,  the  breeze  encouraging  me. 
A  second  bluebird  is  caroling.  Every  addi- 
tional one  is  cause  for  thanlifulness.  Ima- 
gine a  place  where  bluebirds  should  be  as 
thick  as  English  sparrows  are  in  our  Ameri- 
can cities !  Imagine  heaven  !  A  crested  fly- 
catcher screams,  an  olive-side  caUs  jyip^  pip, 
a  robin  cackles,  an  oven-bird  recites  his  piece 
with  schoolboy  emphasis,  an  alder  flycatcher 
qiteeps,  and  a  vesper  sparrow  sings.  And  at 
the  end,  as  if  for  good  measure,  a  Maryland 
yeUow-throat  adds  his  witchery,  witchery. 
The  breeze  comes  to  me  over  broad  beds  of 
hay-scented  fern,  and  at  my  feet  are  bunch- 
berry  blossoms  and  the  white  star-flower. 
At  this  moment,  nevertheless,  the  cooling, 
insect-dispersing  wind  is  better  than  all 
things  else.  Such  is  one  effect  of  hot  wea- 
ther, setting  comfort  above  poetry. 


126        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

I  leave  tlie  wind  beliind,  and  take  my  way 
into  the  wood,  where  there  is  nothing  in  par- 
ticular to  delay  me  except  an  occasional  wind- 
fall, which  must  be  clambered  over  or  beaten 
about.  Half  an  hour,  more  or  less,  of  lazy 
traveling,  and  I  come  out  upon  the  railroad 
at  the  big  sugar-maple  grove.  This  is  one 
of  the  sights  of  the  country  in  the  bright- 
leaf  season,  say  the  first  week  of  October ; 
something,  I  have  never  concluded  what, 
giving  to  its  colors  a  most  remarkable  depth 
and  richness.  Putting  times  together,  I 
must  have  spent  hours  in  admiring  it,  now 
from  different  points  on  the  Butter  Hill 
round,  now  from  Bald  Mountain.  At  pre- 
sent every  leaf  of  it  is  freshly  green,  and 
somewhere  within  it  dwells  a  wood  thrush, 
for  whose  golden  voice  I  sit  down  in  the 
shade  to  listen.  He  is  in  no  haste,  and  no 
more  am  I.  Let  him  take  his  time.  Other 
birds  also  are  a  little  under  the  weather,  as 
it  appears ;  but  the  silence  cannot  last.  A 
scarlet  tanager's  voice  is  the  first  to  break  it. 
High  as  the  temperature  is,  he  is  stiU  hoarse. 
And  so  is  the  black-throated  blue  warbler 
that  foUov/s  him.    A  pine  siskin  passes  over- 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  127 

liead  on  some  errand,  announcing  himself  as 
lie  goes.  There  is  no  need  for  him  to  speak 
twice.  Then  come  three  warblers,  —  a  Nash- 
ville, a  magnolia,  and  a  blue  yellow-back ; 
and  after  them  a  piece  of  larger  game,  a 
smallish  hawk.  He  breaks  out  of  the  dense 
wood  behind  me,  perches  for  half  a  minute 
in  an  open  maple,  where  I  can  see  that  he 
has  prey  of  some  kind  in  his  talons,  and 
then,  taking  wing,  ascends  in  circles  into  the 
sky,  and  so  disappears.  That  is  locomo- 
tion of  a  sort  to  make  a  man  and  his  um- 
brella envious. 

A  rose-breasted  grosbeak,  invisible  (but 
I  can  see  him),  is  warbling  not  far  off. 
He  has  taken  the  tanager's  tune  —  which  is 
the  robin's  as  well  —  and  smoothed  it  and 
smoothed  it,  and  sweetened  it  and  sweetened 
it,  till  it  is  smoother  than  oil  and  sweeter 
than  honey.  I  admire  it  for  what  it  is,  a 
miracle  of  mellifluency  ;  if  you  call  it  per- 
fect, I  can  only  acquiesce  ;  but  I  cannot  say 
that  it  stirs  or  kindles  me.  Perhaps  I  have  n't 
a  sweet  ear.  And  hark !  the  wood  thrush 
gives  voice  :  only  a  few  strains,  but  enough 
to  show  him  still  present.     Now  I  am  free 


128        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

to  trudge  along  up  the  railroad  track,  pon- 
dering as  I  go  upon  tlie  old  question  why- 
railway  sleepers  are  always  too  far  apart  for 
one  step  and  not  far  enough  for  two.  At 
short  intervals  I  pause  at  the  sound  of  a 
mourning  warbler's  brief  song,  pretty  in  it- 
seK,  and  noticeable  for  its  trick  of  a  rolled 
r.  Some  of  the  birds  add  a  concluding  mea- 
sure of  quick  notes,  like  wit^  wit^  wit.  It  is 
long  since  I  have  seen  so  many  at  once.  In 
truth,  I  have  never  seen  so  many  except  on 
one  occasion,  on  the  side  of  Mount  Washing- 
ton. That  was  ten  years  ago.  One  a  year, 
on  the  average,  shows  itself  to  me  during  the 
spring  passage  —  none  in  autmnn.  Well  I 
remember  my  first  one.  Twenty  years  have 
elapsed  since  that  late  May  morning,  but  I 
could  go  to  the  very  spot,  I  think,  though  I 
have  not  been  near  it  for  more  than  half 
that  time.  A  good  thing  it  is  that  we  can 
stiU  enjoy  the  good  things  of  past  years,  or 
of  what  we  call  past  years. 

And  a  good  thing  is  a  railroad,  though 
the  sleepers  be  spaced  on  purpose  for  a  foot 
passenger's  discomfort.  Without  this  one, 
over  which  at  this  early  date  no  trains  are 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  129 

running,  I  should  liardly  be  traversing  these 
miles  of  rough  mountain  country  on  a  day  of 
tropical  sultriness.  The  clear  line  of  the 
track  gives  me  not  only  passage  and  a  breeze, 
but  an  opening  into  the  sky,  and  at  least 
twice  as  many  bird  sights  and  bird  sounds 
as  the  unbroken  forest  would  furnish.^  I 
drink  at  the  section  men's  well  —  an  ice-cold 
spring  inclosed  in  a  bottomless  barrel  — 
cross  the  brook  which,  gloriously  alive  and 
beautiful,  comes  dashing  over  its  boulders 
down  the  White-cross  Eavine,  fifty  feet  be- 
low me  as  I  guess,  and  stop  in  the  burning 
on  the  other  side  to  listen  for  woodpeckers 
and  brown  creepers.  The  latter  are  strangely 
rare  hereabout,  and  this  seems  an  ideal  spot 
in  which  to  look  for  them.  So  I  cannot  help 
thinking  as  I  see  from  how  many  of  the 
trunks  —  burned  to  death  and  left  standing 

1  I  was  once  walking  over  these  same  miles  of  sleepers 
with  a  bird-loving'  man,  when  he  recalled  a  reminiscence 
of  his  boyhood.  One  of  his  teachers  was  remarking  upon 
the  need  of  seeking  things  in  their  appropriate  places. 
"  Now  if  you  wanted  to  see  birds,"  he  said,  by  way  of  il- 
lustration, "you  wouldn't  go  to  a  railroad  track." 
"  Which  is  the  very  place  we  do  go  to,"  my  companion 
added. 


130        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

—  the  bark  lias  warped  in  long,  loose  flakes, 
as  if  to  provide  nesting  sites  for  a  whole  col- 
ony of  creepers.  But  the  birds  are  not  here ; 
or,  if  they  are,  they  do  not  mean  that  an  in- 
quisitive stranger  shall  know  it.  An  olive- 
sided  flycatcher  calls,  rather  far  off,  making 
me  suspicious  for  an  instant  of  a  red  cross- 
bill, and  a  white- throated  sparrow  whistles 
out  of  the  gulch  below  me ;  but  I  listen  in 
vain  for  the  quick  tseep  which  would  put  an 
eighty-seventh  name  into  my  vacation  cata- 
logue. 

Here  is  the  round-leaved  violet,  one  pale- 
bright,  shy  blossom.  How  pleased  I  am  to 
see  it !  Hobble-bush  and  wild  red  cherry 
are  still  in  bloom.  White  Moimtain  dog- 
wood, we  might  almost  call  the  hobble-bush ; 
so  well  it  fills  the  place,  in  flowermg  time, 
of  Cornus  florida  in  the  AUeghanies.  In 
the  twilight  of  the  woods,  as  in  the  darkness 
of  evening,  no  color  shows  so  far  as  white ; 
which,  for  aught  I  know,  may  be  one  of  the 
reasons  why,  relatively  speaking,  white  flow- 
ers are  so  much  more  common  in  the  forest 
than  in  the  open  country.  In  my  eyes, 
nevertheless,  the  leaves  of  the  hobble-bush 


A  DAY  IN   JUNE  131 

—  leaves  and  leaf-buds  —  are,  if  anything, 
prettier  than  the  blossoms.  Such  beauty  of 
shape,  such  expansiveness,  such  elegance  of 
crimpling,  and  such  exceeding  richness  of 
hue,  whether  in  youth  or  age !  If  the  bush 
refuses  transplantation,  as  I  have  read  that 
it  does,  I  am  glad  of  it.  My  sympathies  are 
with  all  things,  plants,  animals,  and  men, 
that  insist  upon  their  native  freedom,  in 
their  native  country,  with  a  touch,  or  more 
than  a  touch,  of  native  Savagery.  Civiliza- 
tion is  well  enough,  within  limits  ;  but  why 
be  in  haste  to  have  all  the  world  a  garden  ? 
It  will  be  some  time  yet,  I  hope,  before  every 
valley  is  exalted. 

With  progress  of  this  industriously  indo- 
lent sort  it  is  nearly  noon  by  the  time  I  turn 
into  the  footpath  that  leads  down  to  Echo 
Lake.  Here  the  air  is  full  of  toad  voices ; 
a  chorus  of  long-drawn  trills  in  the  shrillest 
of  musical  tones.  If  the  creatures  (the 
sandy  shore  and  its  immediate  shallov/s  are 
thick  with  them)  are  attempting  to  set  up  an 
echo,  they  meet  with  no  success.  At  all 
events  I  hear  no  response,  though  the  fault 
may  easily  be  in  my  hearing,  insusceptible  as 


132        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

it  is  to  vibrations  above  a  certain  pitch  of 
fineness.  Wliat  ethereal  music  it  would  be, 
an  echo  of  toad  trills  from  the  grand  sound- 
ing-board of  Eagle  Cliff  !  In  the  density 
of  my  ignorance  I  am  surprised  to  find  such 
numbers  of  these  humble,  half-domesticated, 
garden-loving  batrachians  congregated  here 
in  the  wilderness.  If  the  day  were  less  mid- 
summery,  and  were  not  already  mortgaged 
to  other  plans,  I  would  go  down  to  Profile 
Lake  to  see  whether  the  same  thing  is  going 
on  there.  I  should  have  looked  upon  these 
lovely  sheets  of  mountain  water  as  spawning- 
places  for  trout.  But  toads !  —  that  seems 
another  matter.  If  I  am  surprised  at  their 
presence,  however,  they  seem  equally  so  at 
mine.  And  who  knows  ?  They  were  here 
first.  Perhaps  I  am  the  intruder.  I  wish 
them  no  harm  in  any  case.  If  black  flies 
form  any  considerable  part  of  their  diet, 
they  could  not  multiply  too  rapidly,  though 
every  note  of  every  triU  were  good  for  a  pol- 
liwog,  and  every  polliwog  should  grow  into 
the  portliest  of  toads. 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  133 


THE  AFTERNOON 


I  spoke  a  little  warmly,  perhaps,  at  tlie 
end  of  tlie  forenoon  chapter.  Echo  Lake, 
at  the  foot  of  it,  is  one  of  the  places  where  I 
love  best  to  linger,  and  to-day  it  was  more 
attractive  even  than  usual ;  the  air  of  the 
clearest,  the  sim  bright,  the  mountain  woods 
all  in  young  leaf,  the  water  shining.  But 
the  black  flies,  which  had  left  me  undisturbed 
on  the  raib(5ad,  though  I  sat  still  by  the  half 
hour,  once  I  reached  the  lake  would  allow 
me  no  rest. 

It  was  twelve  days  since  my  first  visit. 
The  snow  was  gone,  and  the  trailing  arbutus 
had  dropped  its  last  blossoms ;  but  both 
kinds  of  shadbush,  standing  in  the  hollow 
where  a  snow-bank  had  lain  ten  days  ago, 
were  still  in  fresh  bloom.  Pink  lady's-slip- 
pers  were  common  (more  buds  than  blossoms 
as  yet),  and  the  pink  rhodora  also  ;  with 
gold-thread,  star-flower,  dwarf  cornel,  hous- 
onia,  and  the  painted  trillium.  Chokeberry 
bushes  were  topped  with  handsome  clusters 
of  round,  purplish  buds. 

The  brightest  and  prettiest   thing   here, 


134        FOOTING   IT   IN   FRANCONIA 

however,  was  not  a  flovv^er,  but  a  bird  ;  a 
Blackburnian  warbler  fluttering  along  before 
me  in  the  low  bushes  —  an  extraordinary 
act  of  grace  on  the  part  of  this  haunter  of 
treetops  —  as  if  on  purpose  to  show  hunself . 
He  was  worth  showing.  His  throat  was  like 
a  jewel.  A  bay-breast,  always  deserving  of 
notice,  was  singing  among  the  evergreens 
near  by.  So  I  believed,  but  the  flies  were 
so  hot  after  me  that  I  made  no  attempt  to 
assure  myseK.  I  was  fairly  chased  away 
from  the  water-side.  One  place  after 
another  I  fled  to,  seeking  one  where  the 
breeze  should  rid  me  of  my  tormentors,  till 
at  last,  in  desperation,  I  took  to  the  piazza 
of  the  little  shop  —  now  unoccupied  —  at 
which  the  summer  tourist  buys  birch-bark 
souvenirs,  with  ginger-beer,  perhaps,  and 
other  potables.  There  I  finished  my  lunch- 
eon, still  having  a  skirmish  with  the  enemy's 
scouts  now  and  then,  but  thankful  to  be  out 
of  the  thick  of  the  battle.  The  ri23pling  lake 
shone  before  me,  a  few  swifts  were  shooting 
to  and  fro  above  it,  but  for  the  time  my  en- 
joyment of  all  such  things  was  gone.  That 
half  hour  of  black-fly  persecution  had  dissi- 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  135 

pated  tlie  liappy  mood  in  which  the  forenoon 
had  been  passed,  and  there  was  no  recover- 
ing it  by  force  of  will.  A  mihtary  man 
would  have  said,  perhaps,  that  I  had  lost  my 
morale.  Something  had  happened  to  me, 
call  it  what  you  will.  But  if  one  string  was 
broken,  my  bow  had  another.  Quiet  medi- 
tation being  impossible,  I  was  all  the  readier 
to  go  in  search  of  Selkirk's  violet,  the  possi- 
ble finding  of  which  was  one  of  the  motives 
that  had  brought  me  into  the  mountains  thus 
early.  To  look  for  flowers  is  not  a  question 
of  mood,  but  of  patience.  To  look  at  them, 
so  as  to  feel  their  beauty  and  meaning,  is 
another  business,  not  to  be  conducted  suc- 
cessfully while  poisonous  insects  are  fretting 
one's  temper  to  madness. 

If  I  went  about  this  botanical  errand 
doubtingly,  let  the  reader  hold  me  excused. 
He  has  heard  of  a  needle  in  a  haystack. 
The  case  of  my  violets  was  similar.  The 
one  man  who  had  seen  them  was  now  dead. 
Years  before,  he  had  pointed  out  to  me  casu- 
ally (or  like  a  dunce  I  had  heard  him  casu- 
ally) the  place  where  he  was  accustomed  to 
leave  the  road  in  going  after  them  —  which 


136        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

was  always  long  before  my  arrival.  This 
place  I  believed  that  I  remembered  within 
perhaps  half  a  mile.  My  only  resource, 
therefore,  was  to  plunge  into  the  forest, 
practically  endless  on  its  further  side,  and 
as  well  as  I  could,  in  an  hour  or  so,  look  the 
land  over  for  that  distance.  Success  would 
be  a  piece  of  almost  incredible  luck,  no 
doubt ;  but  what  then  ?  I  was  here,  the 
hour  was  to  spare,  and  the  woods  were  worth 
a  visit,  violets  or  no  violets.  So  I  plunged 
in,  and,  following  the  general  course  of  the 
road,  swept  the  ground  right  and  left  with 
my  eye,  turning  this  way  and  that  as  boul- 
ders and  tangles  impeded  my  steps,  or  as  the 
sight  of  something  like  violet  leaves  attracted 
me. 

Well,  for  good  or  ill,  it  is  a  short  story. 
There  were  plenty  of  violets,  but  all  of 
the  common  white  sort,  and  when  I  emerged 
into  the  road  again  my  hands  were  empty. 
"Small,"  "rare,"  says  the  Manual.  My 
failure  was  not  ignominious,  —  or  I  would 
keep  it  to  myself,  —  and  I  count  upon  trying 
again  another  season.  And  one  thing  I  had 
found :  my  peace  of  mind.     Subjectively,  as 


A  DAY  IN   JUNE  137 

we  say,  my  hunt  had  prospered.  Now  I 
could  climb  Bald  Mountain  with  good  hope 
of  an  hour  or  two  of  serene  enjoyment  at  the 
summit. 

The  climb  is  short,  though  the  upper  half 
of  it  is  steep  enough  to  merit  the  name,  and 
the  "  mountain  "  (it  will  pardon  me  the  quo- 
tation marks)  is  no  more  than  a  point  of 
rocks,  an  outlying  spur  of  Lafayette.  Its 
attractiveness  is  due  not  to  its  altitude,  but 
to  the  exceptional  fehcity  of  its  situation  ; 
commanding  the  lake  and  the  Notch,  and 
the  broad  Franconia  Valley,  together  with  a 
splendid  panorama  of  broken  country  and 
mountain  forest ;  and  over  all,  close  at  hand, 
the  solemn,  bare  peak  of  Lafayette. 

I  took  my  time  for  the  ascent  (blessed  be 
all-day  jaunts,  say  I),  minding  the  mossy 
boulders,  the  fern-beds,  and  the  trees  (many 
of  them  old  friends  of  mine  —  it  is  more 
than  twenty  years  since  I  began  going  up 
and  down  here),  and  especially  the  violets. 
It  was  surprising,  not  to  say  amusing,  now 
that  I  had  violets  in  my  eye,  how  ubiquitous 
the  little  hlanda  had  suddenly  become.  Al- 
most it  might  be  said  that  there  was  nothing 


138        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

else  in  tlie  whole  forest.     So  true  it  is  that 
seeino-  or  not  seeing  is  mostly  a  matter  of 
prepossession.     As    for    the  birds,  this  was 
their  hour  of  after-dinner  silence.     I  recall 
only  a  golden-crowned  kinglet  zeeing  among 
the  low  evergreens  about  the  cone.     He  was 
the  first  one  of  my  whole  vacation  trip,  and 
slipped  at  once  into  the  eighty-seventh  place 
in  my  catalogue,  the  place  I   had  tried  so 
hard   to  induce  the  brown  creeper  to  take 
possession  of  two  hours  before.     Creeper  or 
kinglet,  it  was  all  one  to  me,  though  the  king- 
let is  the  handsomer  of  the  two,  and  much  the 
less  prosaic  in  his  dietary  methods.     In  fact, 
now  that  the  subject  suggests  itself,  the  two 
birds  present  a  really  striking  contrast :  one 
so  preternaturaUy  quick  and  so  continually 
in  motion,  the    other    so  comparatively  le- 
thargic.    Every  one  to  his  trade.     Let  the 
creeper  stick  to  his  bark.     Quick  or  slow, 
he  should  still  have  been  Number  88,  and 
thrice  welcome,  if  he  would  have  given  me 
half  an  excuse  for  counting  him.     As  things 
were,  he  kept  out  of  my  reckoning  to  the 
end. 

"  This  is  the  best  thing  I  have  had  yet." 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  139 

So  I  said  to  myself  as  I  turned  to  look  about 
me  at  the  summit.  It  was  only  half  past 
two,  the  day  was  gloriously  fair,  the  breeze 
not  too  strong,  yet  ample  for  creature  com- 
forts, —  coolness  and  freedom,  —  and  the 
place  all  my  own.  If  I  had  missed  Selkirk's 
violet,  I  had  found  his  solitude.  The  joists 
of  the  little  open  summer-house  were  scrawled 
thickly  with  names  and  initials,  but  the  scrib- 
blers and  carvers  had  gone  with  last  year's 
birds.  I  might  sing  or  shout,  and  there 
would  be  none  to  hear  me.  But  I  did 
neither.     I  was  glad  to  be  still  and  look. 

There  lay  Echo  Lake,  shimmering  in  the 
sun.  Beyond  was  the  hotel,  its  windows  still 
boarded  for  winter,  and  on  either  side  of  it 
rose  the  mountain  waUs.  The  White  Cross 
stiU  kept  something  of  its  shape  on  Lafay- 
ette, the  only  snow  left  in  sight,  though  al- 
most the  whole  peak  had  been  white  ten 
days  before.  The  cross  itself  must  be  fast 
going.  With  my  glass  I  could  see  the  water 
pouring  from  it  in  a  flood.  And  how  plainly 
I  coidd  foUow  the  trail  up  the  rocky  cone  of 
the  mountain  !  Those  were  good  days  when 
I  climbed  it,  lifting  myseH  step  by  step  up 


140        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

that  long,  steep,  boulder-covered  slope.  I 
should  love  to  be  there  now.  I  wonder  what 
flowers  are  already  in  bloom.  It  must  be 
too  early  for  the  diapensia  and  the  Green- 
land sandwort,  I  imagine.  Yet  I  am  not 
sure.  Mountain  flowers  are  quick  to  an- 
swer when  the  sun  speaks  to  them.  Thou- 
sands of  years  they  have  been  learning  to 
make  the  most  of  a  brief  season.  Plants  of 
the  same  species  bloom  earlier  here  than  in 
level  Massachusetts.  After  all,  alpine  plants, 
hurried  and  harried  as  they  are,  true  chil- 
dren of  poverty,  have  perhaps  the  best  of  it. 
"  Blessed  are  ye  poor  "  may  have  been  spoken 
to  them  also.  Hardy  mountaineers,  blossom- 
ing in  the  very  face  of  heaven,  with  no 
earthly  admirers  except  the  butterflies.  I 
remember  the  splendors  of  the  Lapland  aza- 
lea in  middle  June,  with  rocks  and  snow  for 
neighbors.  So  it  will  be  this  year,  for  Wis- 
dom never  faileth.  I  look  and  look,  till 
almost  I  am  there  on  the  heights,  my  feet 
standing  on  a  carpet  of  blooming  willows 
and  birches,  and  the  world,  like  another  car- 
pet, outspread  below. 

But  there  is  much  else  to   delight  me. 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  141 

Even  here,  so  far  below  the  crest  of  Lafay- 
ette, I  am  above  the  world.  Yonder  is  one 
of  my  pair  of  deserted  farms.  Good  hours 
I  have  had  in  them.  Beyond  is  the  Chase 
clearing,  and  still  beyond,  over  another  tract 
of  woods,  are  the  pasture  lands  along  the 
road  to  "  Mears's."  Then  comes  the  line  of 
the  Bethlehem  road,  marked  by  a  house  at 
long  intervals  —  and  thankful  am  I  for  the 
length  of  them.  There  I  see  my  house ;  one 
of  several  that  I  have  picked  out  for  pur- 
chase, at  one  time  and  another,  but  have 
never  come  to  the  point  of  paying  for,  still 
less  of  occupying.  When  my  friends  and 
I  have  wandered  irresponsibly  about  this 
country  it  has  pleased  us  to  be  like  children, 
and  play  the  old  game  of  make-believe. 
Some  of  the  farmers  would  be  astonished  to 
know  how  many  times  their  houses  have  been 
sold  over  their  heads,  and  they  never  the 
wiser.  Further  away,  a  little  to  the  right, 
I  see  the  pretty  farms  —  romantic  farms,  I 
mean,  attractive  to  outsiders  —  of  which  I 
have  so  often  taken  my  share  of  the  crop 
from  Mount  Agassiz,  at  the  base  of  which 
they  nestle.     To  the  left  of  all  this  are  the 


142        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

village  of  Franconia  and  the  group  of  Sugar 
Hill  hotels,  with  the  Landaff  Valley  (how 
green  it  is !  )  below  them  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance. Nearer  stiU  is  the  Franconia  Valley, 
with  the  Tucker  Brook  alders,  and  far  down 
toward  Littleton  bright  reaches  of  Gale 
River. 

All  this  fills  me  with  exquisite  pleasure. 
But  longer  than  at  anything  else  I  look  at 
the  mountain  forest  just  below  me.  So  soft 
and  bright  this  world  of  treetops  all  newly 
green  !  I  have  no  thoughts  about  it ;  there 
is  nothing  to  say ;  but  the  feeling  it  gives 
me  is  like  what  I  imagine  of  heaven  itself. 
I  can  only  look  and  be  happy. 

About  me  are  stunted,  faded  spruces, 
with  here  and  there  among  them  a  balsam- 
fir,  wonderfully  vivid  and  fresh  in  the  com- 
parison ;  and  after  a  time  I  discover  that 
the  short  upper  branches  of  the  spruces 
have  put  forth  new  cones,  soft  to  the  touch 
as  yet,  and  of  a  delicate,  purplish  color,  the 
tint  varying  greatly,  whether  from  differ- 
ence of  asfe  or  for  other  reasons  I  cannot 
presume  to  say.  In  this  low  wood,  some- 
where near  by,  a  blackpoll  warbler,  not  long 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  143 

from  South  America,  I  suppose,  is  lisping 
softly  to  himself.  A  myrtle  warbler,  less 
recently  come,  and  from  a  less  distance,  has 
taken  possession  of  a  dead  treetop,  hardly 
higher  than  a  man's  head,  from  which  he 
makes  an  occasional  sally  after  a  passing 
insect.  Between  whiles  he  sings.  Once  I 
heard  a  snowbird,  as  I  thought ;  but  it  was 
only  the  myrtle  warbler  when  I  came  to 
look.  An  oven-bird  shoots  into  the  air  out 
of  the  forest  below  for  a  burst  of  aerial 
afternoon  music.  I  heard  the  preluding 
strain,  and,  glancing  up,  caught  him  at 
once,  the  sunlight  happening  to  strike  him 
perfectly.  All  the  morning  he  has  been 
speaking  prose ;  now  he  is  a  poet ;  a  division 
of  the  day  from  which  the  rest  of  us  might 
take  a  lesson.  But  for  his  afternoon  role 
he  needs  a  name.  "  Oven-bird  "  goes  some- 
what heavily  in  a  lyric  :  — 

"  Hark  !  hark !  the  oven-bird  at  heaven's  gate  sings  "  — 

you  would  hardly  recognize  that  for  Shake- 
speare. 

As  I  shift  my  position,  trying  one  after 
another  of  the  seats  which  the  rocks  offer 


144        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

for  my  convenience,  I  notice  that  the  three- 
toothed  five-finger  —  a  mountain  lover,  if 
there  ever  was  one  —  is  in  bud,  and  the 
blueberry  in  blossom.  The  myrtle  warbler 
sings  by  the  hour,  a  soft,  dreamy  trill,  a 
sound  of  pure  contentment ;  and  two  red- 
eyed  vireos,  one  here,  one  there,  preach  with 
equal  persistency.  They  have  taken  the 
same  text,  I  think,  and  it  might  have  been 
made  for  them :  "  Precept  upon  precept, 
precept  upon  precept ;  line  upon  line,  line 
upon  line  ;  here  a  little  and  there  a  little." 
Right  or  wrong,  the  warbler's  lullaby  is 
more  to  my  taste  than  the  vireos'  exhortar 
tion.  A  magnolia  warbler,  out  of  sight 
among  the  evergreens,  is  making  an  after- 
noon of  it  likewise.  His  song  is  a  mere  no- 
thing ;  hardly  to  be  called  a  "  line  ;  "  but  if 
all  the  people  who  have  nothing  extraordi- 
nary to  say  were  to  hold  their  peace,  what 
would  ears  be  good  for?  The  race  might 
become  deaf,  as  races  of  fish  have  gone 
blind  through  living  in  caverns. 

These  are  exactly  such  birds  as  one  might 
have  expected  to  find  here.  And  the  same 
may  be  said  of  a  Swainson  thrush  and  a 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE  145 

pine  siskin.  A  black-billed  cuckoo  and  a 
Maryland  yellow-throat,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  yellow-throat  especially,  seem  less  in 
place.  What  can  have  brought  the  latter 
to  this  dry,  rocky  hilltop  is  more  than  I  can 
imagine.  A  big  black-and-yellow  butterfly 
(Turnus)  goes  sailing  high  overhead,  borne 
on  the  wind.  For  so  unsteady  a  steersman 
he  is  a  bold  mariner.  A  second  look  at 
him,  and  he  is  out  of  sight.  Common  as  he 
is,  he  is  one  of  my  perennial  admirations. 
The  peak  of  Lafayette  is  no  more  a  miracle. 
All  the  flowers  up  there  know  him. 

Now  it  is  time  to  go.  I  have  been  here 
an  hour  and  a  half,  and  am  determined  to 
have  no  hurrying  on  the  way  homeward, 
over  the  old  Notch  road.  Let  the  day  be 
all  alike,  a  day  of  leisure  and  of  dreams. 
A  last  look  about  me,  a  few  rods  of  picking 
my  steep  course  downward  over  the  rocks 
at  the  very  top,  and  I  am  in  the  woods. 
Here,  "my  distance  and  horizon  gone,"  I 
please  myself  with  looking  at  bits  of  the 
world's  beauty;  especially  at  sprays  of 
young  leaves,  breaking  a  twig  here  and  a 
twig  there  to  carry  in  my  hand ;  a  spray  of 


146        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

budded  mountain  maple  or  of  yellow  birch. 
Texture,  color,  shape,  veining  and  folding 
—  all  is  a  piece  of  Nature's  perfect  work. 
No  less  beautiful  —  I  stop  again  and  again 
before  a  bed  of  them  —  are  the  dainty 
brandling  beech-ferns.  There  is  no  telling 
how  pretty  they  are  on  their  slender  shining 
stems.  And  all  the  way  I  am  taking  leave 
of  the  road.  I  may  never  see  it  again. 
"  Good-by,  old  friend,"  I  say ;  and  the  trees 
and  the  brook  seem  to  answer  me,  "  Good- 
by." 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES 


A  nice  and  subtle  happiness,  I  see, 
Thou  to  thyseK  proposest." 


Milton. 


Once  more  I  am  in  old  Franconia,  and  in 
a  new  season.  With  aU  my  visits  to  tlie 
New  Hampshire  mountains,  I  have  never 
seen  them  before  in  August.  I  came  on  the 
last  day  of  July,  —  a  sweltering  journey. 
That  night  it  rained  a  little,  hardly  enough 
to  lay  the  dust,  which  is  deep  in  all  these 
valley  roads,  and  the  next  morning  at  break- 
fast time  the  mercury  marked  fifty-seven 
degrees.  All  day  it  was  cool,  and  at  night 
we  sat  before  a  fire  of  logs  in  the  big  chim- 
ney. The  day  was  really  a  wonder  of  clear- 
ness, as  well  as  of  pleasant  autumnal  tem- 
perature ;  an  exceptional  mercy,  caUing  for 
exceptional  acknowledgment. 

After  breakfast  I  took  the  Bethlehem 
road  at  the  slowest  pace.     The  last  time  I 


148        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

had  traveled  it  was  in  May.  Then  every 
tree  had  its  bird,  and  every  bird  a  voice. 
Now  it  was  August  —  the  year  no  longer 
young,  and  the  birds  no  longer  a  choir. 
And  when  birds  are  neither  in  tune  nor 
in  flocks,  it  is  almost  as  if  they  were  absent 
altogether.  It  seemed  to  me,  when  I  had 
walked  a  mile,  that  I  had  never  seen  Fran- 
conia  so  deserted. 

An  alder  flycatcher  was  calling  from  a 
larch  swamp ;  a  white-throated  sparrow 
whistled  now  and  then  in  the  distance ;  and 
from  still  farther  away  came  the  leisurely, 
widely  spaced  measures  of  a  hermit  thrush. 
When  he  sings  there  is  no  great  need  of  a 
chorus  ;  the  forest  has  found  a  tongue ;  but 
I  could  have  wished  him  nearer.  A  solitary 
vireo,  close  at  hand,  regaled  me  with  a  sweet, 
low  chatter,  more  musical  twice  over  than 
much  that  goes  by  the  name  of  singing,  — 
the  solitary  being  one  of  the  comparatively 
few  birds  that  do  not  know  how  to  be  un- 
musical, —  and  a  sapsucker,  a  noisy  fellow 
gone  silent,  flew  past  my  head  and  alighted 
against  a  telegTaph  pole. 

Wild  red  cherries  QPrunus  Pennsylvch 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  149 

nicd)  were  ripe,  or  nearly  so;  very  bright 
and  handsome  on  their  long,  slender  stems, 
as  I  stood  under  the  tree  and  looked  up. 
With  the  sun  above  them  they  became 
fairly  translucent,  the  shape  of  the  stone 
showing.  They  were  pretty  small,  I  thought, 
and  would  never  take  a  prize  at  any  horti- 
cultural fair ;  I  needed  more  than  one  in  the 
mouth  at  once  when  I  tested  their  quaHty ; 
but  a  robin,  who  had  been  doing  the  same 
thing,  seemed  reluctant  to  finish,  and  surely 
robins  are  competent  judges  in  matters  of 
this  kind.  My  own  want  of  appreciation 
was  probably  due  to  some  pampered  coarse- 
ness of  taste. 

An  orchid,  with  one  leaf  and  a  spike  of 
minute  greenish  flowers,  attracted  notice, 
not  for  any  showy  attributes,  but  as  a  plant 
I  did  not  know.  Adder's  mouth,  it  proved 
to  be ;  or,  to  give  it  all  the  Grecian  Latinity 
that  belongs  to  it,  llicrostylis  ophioglos- 
soides.  How  astonished  it  would  be  to  hear 
that  mouth-confounding  name  applied  to  its 
modest  little  self ;  as  much  astonished,  per- 
haps, as  we  should  be,  who  are  not  modest, 
though   we  may  be   greenish,  if   we  heard 


150        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

some  of  the  more  interesting  titles  that  are 
applied  to  us,  all  in  honest  vernacular,  be- 
hind  our   backs.     This    year's    goldthread 
leaves  gave  me  more   pleasure    than  most 
blossoms    could    have    done;    lustrous,    ele- 
gantly shaped,  and  in  threes.     Threes  are 
prettier  than  fours,  I  said  to  myseK,  as  I 
looked   at   some    four-leaved   specimens   of 
dwarf  cornel    growing    on   the  same    bank. 
The  comparison  was  hardly    decisive,  it  is 
true,    since   the    cornus   leaves   lacked   the 
goldthread's  shapeliness  and  brilliancy ;  but 
I  believe  in  the  grace  of  the  odd  number. 
With  trifles  like  these  I  was  entertaining 
the  time  when  a  man  on  a  buckboard  reined 
in  his  horse  and  invited   me  to  ride.     He 
was   going   down  the    Gale    River  road   a 
piece,  he  said,  and  as  this  was  my  course 
also  I  thankfully  accepted  the  lift.     I  would 
go  farther  than  I  had  intended,  and  would 
spend  the  forenoon  in  loitering  back.     My 
host  had  two  or  three  tin  pails  between  his 
feet,  and  I  was  not  surprised  when  he  told 
me  that  he  was  "  going  berrying."     What 
did  surprise  me  was  to  find,  fifteen  minutes 
later,  when  I  got  on  my  legs  again,  that 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  151 

with  no  sucli  conscious  purpose,  and  with  no 
tin  pail,  I  had  myself  come  out  on  the  same 
errand.  "It  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to 
direct  his  steps." 

The  simple  truth  was  that  the  raspber- 
ries would  not  take  no  for  an  answer.  If  I 
passed  one  clump  of  bushes,  another  way- 
laid me.  "  Raspberries,  all  ripe,"  they  said. 
It  was  not  quite  true  :  that  would  have  been 
a  misfortune  unspeakable ;  but  the  ripe  ones 
were  enough.  Softly  they  dropped  into  the 
fingers  —  softly  in  spite  of  their  asperous 
name  —  and  sweetly,  three  or  four  together 
for  goodness'  sake,  they  melted  upon  the 
tongue.  They  were  so  many  that  a  man 
could  have  his  pick,  taking  only  those  of  a 
deep  color  (ten  minutes  of  experience  would 
teach  him  the  precise  shade)  and  a  worthy 
plumpness,  passing  a  bushel  to  select  a  gill. 

No  raspberry  should  be  pulled  upon  ever 
so  little  ;  it  should  fall  at  the  touch ;  and  the 
teeth  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  it, 
more  than  with  honey  or  cream.  So  I  med- 
itated, and  so  with  aU  daintiness  I  practiced, 
finishing  my  banquet  again  and  again  as  a 
fresh  cluster  beguiled  me ;  for  raspberry-eat- 


152        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

ing,  like  woman's  work,  is  never  done.  If 
the  apple  in  Eden  was  as  pleasant  to  the 
eyes  and  half  as  good  to  eat,  then  I  have  no 
reflections  to  cast  upon  the  mistress  of  the 
garden.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  me  not  unlikely 
that  the  Edenic  apple  may  have  been  no- 
thing more  nor  less  than  a  Franconian  rasp- 
berry. Small  wonder,  say  I,  that  one  taste 
of  its  "sciential  sap"  "gave  elocution  to 
the  mute." 

So  I  came  up  out  of  the  Gale  River 
woods  into  the  bushy  lane  —  a  step  or  two 
and  a  mouthful  of  berries  —  and  thence  into 
the  level  grassy  field  by  the  grove  of  pines ; 
a  favorite  place,  with  a  world  of  mountains 
in  sight  —  Moosilauke,  Kinsman,  Cannon, 
Lafayette,  Haystack,  the  Twins,  and  the 
whole  Mount  Washington  range.  A  pile 
of  timbers,  the  bones  of  an  old  barn,  offered 
me  a  seat,  and  there  I  rested,  facing  the 
mountains,  while  a  company  of  merry  barn 
swallows,  loquacious  as  ever,  went  skimming- 
over  the  grass.  Moving  clouds  dappled  the 
mountain-sides  with  shadows,  the  sun  was 
good,  a  rare  thing  in  August,  and  I  was 
happy. 


BERRY-TIIVIE  FELICITIES  153 

This  lasted  for  a  matter  of  half  an  hour. 
Then  a  sound  of  wheels  caused  me  to  turn 
my  head.  Yes,  a  pair  of  gray  horses  and  a 
covered  carriage,  with  a  white  net  protrud- 
ing behind,  —  an  entomological  flag  weU 
known  to  all  Franconia  dwellers  in  summer 
time,  one  of  the  institutions  of  the  valley. 
A  hand  was  waved,  and  in  another  minute  I 
was  being  carried  toward  Bethlehem,  all  my 
pedestrian  plans  forgotten.  I  was  becom- 
ing that  disreputable  thing,  an  opportunist. 
But  what  then  !  As  I  remarked  just  now, 
"It  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his 
steps."  In  vacation  days  the  wisest  of  us 
may  go  with  the  wind. 

A  pile  of  decaying  logs  by  the  roadside 
soon  tempted  the  insect  collector  to  order  a 
halt.  She  was  brought  up,  as  I  have  heard 
her  say  regretfully,  on  the  stern  New  Eng- 
land doctrine  that  time  once  past  never  re- 
turns, and  she  is  still  true  to  her  training. 
We  stripped  the  bark  from  log  after  log, 
but  uncovered  nothing  worth  while  (such 
beetles  as  the  unprofessional  assistant  turned 
up  being  damned  without  hesitation  as 
"common")    except    two   little   mouse-col- 


154        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

ored,  red-bellied  snakes,  each  with  two  or 
three  spots  on  the  back  of  its  head.  One  of 
these  pretty  creatures  the  collector  proceeded 
to  mesmerize  by  rubbing  its  crown  gently 
with  a  stick.  "  See !  he  enjoys  it,"  she  said ; 
and  if  thrusting  out  the  tongue  is  a  sign  of 
enjoyment,  no  doubt  he  was  in  something 
like  an  ecstasy.  Storeria  occiintomaculata^ 
the  books  caU  him.  Short  snakes,  Hke  smaU 
orchids,  are  well  pieced  out  with  Latinity. 
I  would  not  disturb  the  savor  of  raspberries 
by  trying  just  then  to  put  my  tongue  round 
that  specific  designation,  though  it  goes  trip- 
pingly enough  with  a  little  practice,  and  is 
plain  enough  in  its  meaning.  One  did  not 
need  to  be  a  scholar,  or  to  look  twice  at  the 
snake,  to  see  that  its  occiput  was  maculated. 
At  the  top  of  the  hill  —  for  we  took  the 
first  turn  to  the  left  —  "  creation  widened," 
and  we  had  before  us  a  magnificent  prospect 
westward,  with  many  peaks  of  the  Green 
Mountains  beyond  the  valley.  Atmosphere 
so  transparent  as  to-day's  was  not  made  for 
nothing.  Insects  and  even  raspberries  were 
for  the  moment  out  of  mind.  There  was 
glory  everywhere.     We   looked    at  it,  but 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  155 

when  we  talked  it  was  mostly  of  trifles :  the 
bindweed,  tlie  goldenrod,  a  passing  butterfly, 
a  sparrow.  Those  who  are  really  happy  are 
often  pleased  to  speak  of  matters  indifferent. 
Sometimes  I  think  it  is  those  who  only  icish 
to  be  happy  who  deal  in  superlatives  and 
exclamations. 

One  thing  I  was  especially  glad  to  see  : 
the  big  pastures  on  the  Wallace  Hill  road 
full  of  hardback  bloom.  Many  times,  in 
September  and  October,  I  had  stopped  to 
gaze  upon  those  acres  on  acres  of  brown 
spires  ;  now  I  beheld  them  pink.  It  was 
really  a  sight,  a  sea  of  color.  If  cattle 
would  eat  /SjnrcEa  tomentosa,  the  fields 
would  be  as  good  as  gold  mines.  So  I 
thought.  I  thought,  too,  what  an  ocean  of 
"  herb  tea  "  might  be  concocted  from  those 
millions  and  millions  of  leafy  stalks.  The 
idea  was  too  much  for  me  ;  imagination  was 
near  to  being  drowned  in  a  sea  of  its  own 
creating ;  and  I  was  relieved  when  we  left 
the  rosy  wilderness  behind  us,  and  came  to 
the  famous  clump  of  pear-leaved  willow  (^Sa- 
lix  halsamiferd)  near  the  edge  of  the  wood. 
This  I  must  get  over  the  fence  and  put  my 


156        FOOTING  IT  IN  FKANCONIA 

hand  on,  just  for  old  times'  sake.  A  man 
may  take  it  as  one  of  tke  less  uncomfortable 
indications  of  increasing  age  when  lie  loves 
to  do  things  simply  because  he  used  to  do 
them,  or  has  done  them  in  remembered  com- 
pany. In  that  respect  I  humor  myself.  If 
there  is  anything  good  in  the  multiplying  of 
years,  by  all  means  let  me  have  it.  And  so 
I  wore  the  willow. 

On  the  way  down  the  steep  hill  through 
the  forest  my  friends  pointed  out  a  maple 
tree  which  a  pileated  woodpecker  had  rid- 
dled at  a  tremendous  rate.  The  trunk  con- 
tained the  pupse  of  wasps  (they  were  not 
strictly  wasps,  the  entomologist  was  careful 
to  explain,  but  were  always  caUed  so  by 
"common  people"),  and  no  doubt  it  was 
these  that  the  woodpecker  had  been  after. 
He  had  gone  clean  to  the  heart  of  the  trunk, 
now  on  this  side,  now  on  that.  Chips  by  the 
shovelful  covered  the  ground.  The  big,  red- 
crested  fellow  must  love  wasp  pupse  almost 
as  well  as  some  people  love  raspberries. 
Green  leaves,  a  scanty  covering,  were  still 
on  the  tree,  but  its  days  were  numbered. 
Who  could  have  foreseen  that  the  stings  of 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  157 

insects  would  bring  such  destruction  ?  Mis- 
fortunes never  come  singly.  After  the  wasps 
the  woodpecker.  "Which  things  are  an 
allegory." 

One  of  my  pleasures  of  the  milder  sort 
was  to  sit  on  the  piazza  before  breakfast 
(the  lateness  of  the  White  Mountain  break- 
fast hour  being  one  of  a  walking  man's  clis- 
pleasures)  and  watch  the  two  morning  pro- 
cessions :  one  of  tall  milk  cans  to  and  from 
the  creamery,  —  an  institution  which  any 
countrj^-'born  New  Englander  may  be  glad 
to  think  of,  for  the  comfort  it  has  brought 
to  New  England  farmers'  wives ;  the  other 
of  boys,  each  with  a  tin  pail,  on  their  way 
to  serve  as  caddies  at  the  new  Profile  House 
golf  links.  This  latter  procession  I  had 
never  seen  till  the  present  year.  Half  the 
boys  of  the  village,  from  seven  or  eight  to 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years  old,  seemed  to  have 
joined  it ;  some  on  bicycles,  some  in  buggies, 
some  on  foot,  none  on  horseback  —  a  strik- 
ing omission  in  the  eyes  of  any  one  who  has 
ever  lived  or  visited  at  the  South. 

Franconia  boys,  I   have  noticed,  have  a 


158        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

clieerf  ul,  businesslike,  independent  way  with 
them,  neither  bashful  nor  overbold,  and  it 
was  gratifying  to  see  them  so  quick  to  im- 
prove a  new  and  not  unamusing  method  of 
turning  a  penny.  Work  that  has  to  do  with 
a  game  is  no  more  than  half  work,  though 
the  game  be  played  by  somebody  else  ;  and 
some  of  the  boys,  it  was  to  be  remarked, 
carried  golf  sticks  of  their  own.  Trust  a 
Yankee  lad  to  combine  business  and  pleas- 
ure. One  such  I  heard  of,  who  was  already 
planning  how  to  invest  his  prospective  capi- 
tal. 

"  Mamma,"  he  said,  "  can't  I  spend  part 
of  my  money  for  a  fishing-rod  ?  " 

"  But,  my  dear,"  said  his  mother,  "  you 
know  it  was  agreed  that  the  first  of  it  should 
go  for  clothes." 

"  Yes,  mamma,  but  a  boy  can  get  along 
without  clothes ;  and  I  've  never  had  any 
fishing-rod  but  a  peeled  stick." 

It  sounds  like  a  fairy  tale,  but  it  is  strictly 
true,  that  a  famous  angler,  just  then  disabled 
from  practicing  his  art,  overheard  —  or  was 
told  of,  I  am  not  certain  which  —  this  heart- 
warming  confession  of  faith,  and  at  once 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  159 

said,  "  My  boy,  I  will  give  you  a  fishing-rod." 
And  so  lie  did,  and  a  silk  line  with  it.  A 
boy  who  could  get  on  without  clothes,  but 
must  have  the  wherewithal  to  go  a-fishing, 
was  a  boy  with  a  sense  of  values,  a  philoso- 
pher in  the  bud,  and  merited  encourage- 
ment. 

While  I  watched  these  industrial  proces- 
sions ("  Gidap,  Charlie  !  Gidap  !  "  says  a 
cheery  voice  down  the  road),  I  listened  to 
the  few  singers  whose  morning  music  could 
still  be  counted  upon :  one  or  two  song- 
sparrows,  a  field  sparrow,  an  indigo-bird  (as 
true  a  lover  of  August  as  of  feathery  larch 
tops),  a  red-eyed  vireo,  and  a  distant  hermit 
thrush.  Almost  always  a  score  or  two  of 
social  barn  swallows  were  near  by,  dotting 
the  telegraph  wires,  or,  if  the  morning  was 
cold,  di'opping  in  bunches  of  twos  and  tlu-ees 
into  the  thick  foliage  of  young  elms.  In  the 
trees,  on  the  wires,  or  in  the  air,  they  were 
sure  to  keep  up  a  comfortable-sounding  cho- 
rus of  squeaky  twitters.  The  barn  swallow 
is  born  a  gossip  ;  or  perhaps  we  should  say 
a  talking  sage  —  a  Socrates,  if  you  will,  or 
a  Samuel  Johnson.     Now  and   then  —  too 


160        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

i^arely  —  a  vesper  sparrow  sang  a  single 
strain,  or  a  far-away  white-throat  gave  voice 
across  the  meadow  ;  and  once  a  passing  hum- 
ming-bird, a  good  singer  with  his  wings, 
stopped  to  probe  the  monk's-hood  blossoms 
in  the  garden  patch.  The  best  that  can 
be  said  of  the  matter  is  that  for  birds  the 
season  was  neither  one  thing  nor  another. 
Lovers  of  field  ornithology  should  come  to 
the  mountains  earlier  or  later,  leaving  Au- 
gust to  the  crowd  of  common  tourists,  who 
love  nature,  of  course  (who  does  n't  in  these 
days  ?),  but  only  in  the  general ;  who  believe 
with  Walt  Whitman  —  since  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  read  a  poet  in  order  to  share  his 
opinions  —  that  "  you  must  not  know  too 
much  or  be  too  precise  or  scientific  about 
birds  and  trees  and  flowers  and  water-craft ; 
a  certain  free  margin,  and  even  vagueness  — 
even  ignorance,  credulity  —  helping  your 
enjoyment  of  these  things." 

Such  a  credulous  enjoyer  of  beauty  I 
knew  of,  a  few  years  ago,  a  summer  dweller 
at  a  mountain  hotel  closely  shut  in  by  the 
forest  on  all  sides,  with  no  grass  near  it  ex- 
cept a  scanty  plot  of  shaven  lawn.     Well, 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  161 

this  good  lady,  an  honest  appreciator  of 
things  wild,  after  the  Whitman  manner,  be- 
ing in  the  company  of  a  man  known  to  be 
interested  in  matters  ornithological,  broke 
out  upon  him,  — 

"  Oh,  Mr. ,  I  do  so  enjoy  the  birds !    I 

sit  at  my  window  and  listen  to  the  meadow 
larks  by  the  hour." 

The  gentleman  was  not  adroit  (I  am  not 
speaking  of  myself,  let  me  say).  Perhaps 
lie  was  more  ornithologist  than  man  of  the 
world.  Such  a  thing  may  happen.  At  any 
rate  he  failed  to  command  himself. 

"  Meadow  larks  !  "  he  answered,  knowing 
there  was  no  bird  of  that  kind  within  ten 
miles  of  the  spot  in  question. 

"  Well,"  said  his  fair  interlocutor,  "  they 
are  either  meadow  larks  or  song  sparrows." 

Such  nature  lovers,  I  say,  may  properly 
enough  come  to  the  mountains  in  August. 
As  for  bird  students,  who,  not  being  poets, 
are  in  no  danger  of  knowing  "  too  much,"  if 
they  can  come  but  once  a  year,  let  them  by 
all  means  choose  a  birdier  season. 

For  myself,  though  my  present  mood  was 
rather  Whitmanian  than  scientific,  I  did  de- 


162        FOOTING  IT  IN   FRANCONIA 

vote  one  forenoon  to  what  might  bs  called 
an  ornithological  errand :  I  went  np  to  the 
worn-out  fields  at  the  end  of  the  Coal  Hill 
road,  to  see  whether  by  any  chance  a  pair 
of  horned  larks  might  be  summering  there, 
as  I  had  heard  of  a  pair's  doing  eight  or  ten 
years  ago.  Even  this  jaunt,  however,  ran 
into  —  I  will  not  say  degenerated  into  — 
something  like  a  berry-picking  excursion. 
Kaspberries  and  blueberries  so  thick  as  to 
color  the  roadside,  mile  after  mile,  are  a  de- 
lightful temptation  to  a  natural  man  whose 
home  is  in  a  closely  settled  district  where 
every  edible  berry  that  turns  red  (actual 
ripeness  being  out  of  the  question)  finds  a 
small  boy  beside  the  bush  ready  to  pick  it. 
I  succumbed  at  once.  In  fact,  I  succumbed 
too  soon.  The  road  was  long,  and  the  ber- 
ries grew  fatter  and  rij)er,  or  so  I  thought, 
as  I  proceeded.  It  was  a  real  tragedy. 
Does  anything  in  my  reader's  experience 
tell  him  what  I  mean  ?  If  so,  I  am  sure  of 
his  sympathy.  If  not,  —  weU,  in  that  case 
he  has  my  symj)athy.  Perhaps  he  has  once 
in  his  life  seen  a  small  boy  who,  at  table, 
not  suspecting  what  was  in  store  for  him, 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  163 

ate  so  much  of  an  ordinary  dinner  that  out 
of  sheer  physical  necessity  he  was  compelled 
to  forego  his  favorite  dessert.  Alas,  and 
alas  !  A  wasted  appetite  is  like  wasted  time, 
a  loss  irreparable.  You  may  have  another, 
no  doubt,  on  another  day,  but  never  the  one 
you  sated  upon  inferior  fruit. 

Why  should  berries  be  so  many,  and  a 
man's  digestive  capacity  so  near  to  nothing? 
The  very  bushes  reproached  me  ;  like  a  jeal- 
ous housewife  who  finds  her  choicest  dainties 
discarded  on  the  plate.  "We  have  piped 
unto  you  and  ye  have  not  danced,"  they 
seemed  to  mutter.  I  grew  shame-faced  and 
looked  the  other  way  :  at  the  splendid  ro- 
settes of  red  bunchberries  ;  at  a  bush  full  of 
red  (another  red)  mountain-holly  berries, 
red  with  a  most  exquisite  purplish  bloom,  the 
handsomest  berries  in  the  world,  I  am  ready 
to  believe.  Or  I  stopped  to  consider  a  clus- 
ter of  varnished  baneberries,  or  a  few  mod- 
est, drooping,  leaf -hidden  jewels  of  tlie 
twisted  stalk.  In  truth,  and  in  short,  it  was 
berry-time  in  Franconia.  What  a  strait  a 
man  would  have  been  in  if  all  kinds  had 
been  humanly  edible ! 


164        FOOTING   IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

With  all  tlie  rest  there  was  no  passing  the 
strangely  blue  bear-plums,  as  Northern  peo- 
ple call  the  fruit  of  clintonia.  A  strange 
blue,  I  say.  Left  to  myself  I  should  never 
have  found  a  word  for  it ;  but  by  good  luck 
I  raised  the  question  with  a  man  who,  as  I 
now  suppose,  is  probably  the  only  person  in 
the  world  who  could  have  told  me  what  I 
needed  to  know.  He  is  an  authority  upon 
pottery  and  porcelain,  and  he  answered  on 
the  instant,  though  I  cannot  hope  to  quote 
him  exactly,  that  the  color  was  that  of  the 
Ming  dynasty.  Every  Chinese  dynasty,  I 
think  he  said,  has  a  color  of  its  own  for  its 
pottery.  When  the  founder  of  the  Ming 
dynasty  was  asked  of  what  shade  he  would 
have  the  royal  dinner  set,  he  replied :  "  Let 
it  be  that  of  the  sky  after  rain."  And  so 
it  was  the  color  of  Franconia  bear-plums. 
Which  strikes  me  as  a  circumstance  very 
much  to  the  Ming  dynasty's  credit. 

In  a  lonely  stretch  of  the  road,  with  a  cat- 
tle pasture  on  one  side  and  a  wood  on  the 
other,  where  tall  grass  in  fuU  flower  stood 
between  the  horse  track  and  the  wheel  rut 
(this  was  a  good  berrying  place,  also,  had  I 


BERRY-TIME   FELICITIES  165 

been  equal  to  my  opportunity),  I  stood  still 
to  enjoy  tlie  music  of  a  liermit  thrush,  winch 
happened  to  be  at  just  the  right  distance. 
A  holy  voice  it  was,  singing  a  psalm,  mea- 
sure responding  to  measure  out  of  the  same 
golden  throat.  I  tried  to  fit  words  to  it. 
"  Oh,"  it  began,  but  for  the  remainder  of 
the  strophe  there  were  no  syllables  in  our 
heavy,  consonant-weighted  English  tongue. 
It  might  be  Spanish,  I  thought  —  musical 
vowels  with  Z's  and  d's  holding  them  together. 
I  remembered  the  reputed  saying  of  Charles 
v.,  that  Spanish  is  the  language  of  the  gods, 
and  was  ready  to  add,  "  and  of  hermit 
thrushes."  But  perhaps  this  was  only  a 
fancy.  One  thing  was  certain  :  the  bird  sang 
in  Spanish  or  in  sometliing  better.  If  a  man 
could  eat  raspberries  as  long  as  he  can  listen 
to  sweet  sounds ! 

Before  the  last  house  there  was  a  briUiant 
show  of  poppies,  and  beyond,  at  the  limit  of 
the  clearing,  an  enormous  bean-field.  Pop- 
pies and  beans  !  Poetry  and  prose  !  Some- 
thing to  look  at  and  something  to  eat.  Such 
is  the  texture  of  human  life.  For  my  part, 
I  caU  it  a  felicitous  combination.    Here,  only 


166        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

a  little  while  ago,  the  man  of  the  house  — 
and  of  the  beanfiekl  —  had  come  face  to  face 
with  a  most  handsome,  long-antlered  deer, 
which  stamped  at  him  till  the  two,  man  and 
deer,  were  at  close  quarters,  and  then  made 
off  into  the  woods.  Somewhere  here,  also, 
the  entomological  collector  had  within  a  week 
or  two  found  a  beetle  of  a  kind  that  had 
never  been  "taken"  before  except  in  Ari- 
zona !  But  though  I  beat  the  grass  over 
from  end  to  end,  there  was  no  sign  of  horned 
larks.  Ornithology  was  out  of  date,  as  was 
more  and  more  apparent. 

My  homeward  walk,  with  the  cold  wind 
cutting  my  face,  took  on  the  complexion  of 
a  retreat.  I  could  hardly  walk  fast  enough, 
though  here  and  there  a  clump  of  virginal 
raspberry  vines  stiU.  detained  me  briefly.  It 
is  amazing  how  frigid  August  can  be  when 
the  mood  takes  it.  A  farmer  was  mowing 
with  his  winter  coat  buttoned  to  the  chin.  I 
looked  at  him  with  envy.  For  my  owa  part 
I  should  have  been  glad  of  an  overcoat ;  and 
that  afternoon,  when  I  went  out  to  drive,  I 
wore  one,  and  a  borrowed  ulster  over  it. 
Such  feats  are  pleasant  to  think  of  a  few 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  167 

days  afterward,  wlien  the  weather  has  changed 
its  mind  again,  and  the  mercury  is  once  more 
reaching  for  the  century  mark. 

In  the  course  of  my  five  days  I  walked 
twice  over  the  road  newly  cut  through  the 
mountain  forest  from  the  foot  of  Echo  Lake 
to  the  golf  grounds  :  first  upward,  in  an  af- 
ternoon, returning  to  Franconia  by  the  old 
highway;  then  downward,  in  a  forenoon, 
after  reaching  the  lake  by  way  of  the  Butter 
Hill  road  and  the  sleepers,  that  is  to  say,  the 
railroad.  Forenoon  and  afternoon  the  im- 
pression was  the  same,  —  silence,  as  if  the 
birds'  year  were  over,  though  everything  was 
still  green  and  the  season  not  so  late  but  that 
tardy  wood-sorrel  blossoms  stiU  showed,  here 
and  there  one,  among  the  clover-like  leaves ; 
old  favorites,  that  I  had  not  seen  for  perhaps 
a  dozen  years. 

On  the  railroad  —  a  place  which  I  have 
always  found  literally  alive  with  song  and 
wings,  not  only  in  May  and  June,  but  in 
September  and  October  —  I  walked  for  for- 
ty-five minutes,  by  the  watch,  without  hear- 
ing so  much  as  a  bird's  note.     Almost  the 


168        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

only  living  creature  that  I  saw  (three  berry- 
pickers  and  a  dog  excepted)  was  a  red  squir- 
rel which  sat  on  end  at  the  top  of  a  tall 
stump,  with  his  tail  over  his  back,  and  ate 
a  raspberry,  as  if  to  show  me  how.  "  You 
think  you  are  an  epicure,"  he  said ;  "  and 
you  stuff  yourself  so  f uU  in  half  an  hour  that 
you  have  to  fast  for  half  a  day  afterward. 
What  sort  of  epicurean  philosophy  is  that  ? 
Look  at  me."  And  I  looked.  He  held  the 
berry  —  which  must  have  been  something 
less  than  ripe  —  between  his  fore  paws,  just 
as  he  would  have  held  a  nut,  and  after  look- 
ing at  me  to  make  sure  I  was  paying  atten- 
tion twirled  it  round  and  round  against  his 
teeth  tiU  it  grew  smaller  and  smaller  before 
my  eyes,  and  then  was  gone.  "  There !  " 
said  the  saucy  chap,  as  he  held  up  his  empty 
fingers.  The  operation  had  consumed  a  full 
minute,  at  the  very  least.  At  that  rate,  no 
doubt,  a  man  could  swaUow  raspberries  from 
morning  till  night.  But  what  good  would  it 
do  him  ?  He  might  as  well  be  swallowing 
the  wind.  No  human  mouth  could  tell  rasp- 
berry juice  from  warm  water,  in  doses  so  in- 
finitesimal. 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  169 

The  sight,  nevertheless,  gave  me  a  new 
conception  of  the  pitch  of  delicacy  to  which 
the  sense  of  taste  might  be  cultivated.  It 
was  evident  that  our  human  faculty,  com- 
fortably as  we  get  on  with  it  in  the  main,  is 
only  a  coarse  and  bungling  tool,  never  more 
than  half  made,  perhaps,  or  quite  as  likely 
blunted  and  spoiled  by  millenniums  of  abuse. 
I  could  really  have  envied  the  chickaree,  if 
such  a  feeling  had  not  seemed  unworthy  of  a 
man's  dignity.  Besides,  a  palate  so  supersus- 
ceptible  might  prove  an  awkward  possession, 
it  occurred  to  me  on  second  thought,  for  one 
who  must  live  as  one  of  the  "  civilized,"  and 
take  his  chances  with  cooks.  All  things  con- 
sidered,  I  was  better  off,  perhaps,  with  the 
old  equipment  and  the  old  method,  —  a  duller 
taste  and  larger  mouthfuls. 

At  the  end  of  the  forty-five  minutes  I  came 
to  the  burning,  a  tract  of  forest  over  which  a 
fire  had  run  some  two  years  before.  Here, 
in  this  dead  place,  there  was  more  of  life  ; 
more  sunshine,  and  therefore  more  insects, 
and  therefore  more  birds.  Even  here,  how- 
ever, there  was  nothing  to  be  called  birdi- 
ness :  a  few  olive-sided  flycatchers  and  wood 


170        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

pewees,  both  with  musical  whistles,  one  like 
a  challenge,  the  other  an  elegy;  a  family 
group  of  chestnut-sided  warblers,  parents 
and  young,  conversing  softly  among  them- 
selves about  the  events  of  the  day,  mostly 
gastronomic  ;  a  robin  and  a  white-throated 
sparrow  in  song ;  three  or  four  chickadees, 
lisping  and  deeing  ;  a  siskin  or  two,  a  song 
sparrow,  and  a  red-eyed  vireo.  The  whole 
tract  was  purple  with  willow  herb  —  which 
foUows  fire  as  surely  as  boys  follow  a  fire  en- 
gme  —  and  white  with  pearly  immortelles. 

Once  out  of  this  open  space  —  this  forest 
cemetery,  one  might  say,  though  the  dead 
were  not  buried,  but  stood  upright  hke 
bleached  skeletons,  with  arms  outstretched 
—  I  was  again  immersed  in  leafy  silence, 
which  lasted  till  I  approached  the  lake. 
Here  I  heard  before  me  the  tweeting  of  sand- 
pipers, and  presently  came  in  sight  of  two 
solitaries  (migrants  already,  though  it  was 
only  the  4th  of  August),  each  bobbing  ner- 
vously upon  its  boulder  a  little  off  shore. 
The  eye  of  the  ornithologist  took  them  in : 
dark  green  legs ;  dark,  slender  bills  ;  bob- 
bing, not  teetering  —  Totanus,  not  Actitis* 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  171 

Then  tlie  eyes  of  the  man  turned  to  rest  upon 
that  enchanting  prospect;  Eagle  Cliff  in 
shadow,  Profile  Mountain  in  full  sun,  and 
the  lake  between  them.  The  spirit  of  aU  the 
hours  I  had  ever  spent  here  was  communing 
with  me.  I  blessed  the  place  and  bade 
it  good-by.  ''  I  wiU  come  again  if  I  can,"  I 
said,  "  and  many  times  ;  but  if  not,  good-by." 
I  believe  I  am  like  the  birds  ;  no  matter  how 
far  south  they  may  wander,  when  the  winter 
is  gone  they  say  one  to  another,  "  Let  us  go 
back  to  the  north  country,  to  the  place  where 
we  were  so  happy  a  year  ago." 

The  last  day  of  my  visit,  the  only  warm 
one,  fell  on  Sunday  ;  and  on  Sunday,  by  all 
our  Franconia  traditions,  I  must  make  the 
round  of  Landaff  Valley.  I  had  been  into 
the  valley  once,  to  be  sure,  but  that  did  not 
matter ;  it  was  not  on  Sunday,  and  besides, 
I  did  not  really  go  "  round  the  square,"  as 
we  are  accustomed  to  say,  with  a  fine  disre- 
gard of  mathematical  precision. 

After  all,  there  is  little  to  tell  of,  though 
there  was  plenty  to  see  and  enjoy.  The  first 
thing  was  to  get  out  of  the  village ;  away 
from  the  churches  and  the  academy,  and  be- 


172        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

yond  the  last  house  (the  last  village  house, 
I  mean),  into  the  company  of  the  river,  the 
long  green  meadow  and  the  larch  swamp,  — 
a  goodly  fellowship.  A  swamp  sparrow 
trilled  me  a  welcome  at  the  very  entrance  to 
the  valley,  as  he  had  done  before,  and  musi- 
cal goldluiches  accompanied  me  for  the  whole 
round,  tiU  I  thought  the  day  should  be 
named  in  their  honor,  Goldfinch  Sunday. 

Pretty  Atlantis  butterflies  were  always  in 
sight,  as  they  had  been  even  in  the  coolest 
weather,  with  now  and  then  an  Atalanta  and, 
more  rarely,  a  Cybele.  I  had  looked  for 
Aphrodite,  also,  being  desirous  to  see  these 
three  fritillaries  (Cybele,  Aphrodite,  and  At- 
lantis) together,  till  the  entomologist  told 
me  that  we  were  out  of  its  latitude.  Com- 
moner even  than  Atlantis,  perhaps,  was  the 
dusky  wood-nymph,  Alope  (strange  notions 
the  old  Greeks  must  have  had  of  the  vola- 
tihty  of  their  goddesses  and  heroines,  to 
name  so  many  of  them  after  butterflies  !), 
she  of  the  big  yellow  blotch  on  each  fore 
wing;  a  wavering,  timid  creature,  always 
seeking  to  hide  herself,  and  never  holding  a 
steady  course  for  so  much  as  an  inch  —  as  if 


BERRY-TIME  FELICITIES  173 

she  were  afflicted  with  the  shaking  palsy. 
"  Don't  look  at  me  !  Pray  don't  look  at  me  !  " 
she  is  forever  saying  as  she  dodges  behind  a 
leaf.  Shyness  is  a  grace  —  in  the  feminine ; 
but  Alope  is  too  shy.  If  her  complexion 
were  fairer,  possibly  she  would  be  less  re- 
tiring. 

From  the  first  the  warmth  of  the  sun  was 
sufficient  to  render  shady  halts  a  luxury,  and 
on  the  crossroad  —  "  Gray  Birch  Road,"  to 
quote  my  own  name  for  it  —  where  a  walker 
was  somewhat  shut  away  from  the  wind,  I 
began  to  spell  "  warm  "  with  fewer  letters. 
Here,  too,  the  dust  was  excessively  deep,  so 
that  passing  carriages  —  few,  but  too  many 
—  put  a  foot-passenger  under  a  cloud.  Still 
I  was  glad  to  be  there,  turning  the  old  cor- 
ners, seeing  the  old  beauty,  thinking  the  old 
thoughts.  How  green  Tucker  Brook  mea- 
dow looked,  and  how  grandly  Lafayette 
loomed  into  the  sky  just  beyond ! 

Most  pecuhar  is  the  feeling  I  have  for 
that  sharp  crest ;  I  know  not  how  to  express 
it ;  a  feeling  of  something  like  spiritual  pos- 
session. If  I  do  not  love  it,  at  least  I  love 
the  sight  of  it.     Nay,  I  will  say   what   I 


174        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

mean  :  I  love  tlie  mountain  itself.  I  take 
pleasure  in  its  stones,  and  favor  the  dust 
thereof.  The  loftiest  snow-covered  peak  in 
the  world  would  never  carry  my  thoughts 
higher,  or  detain  them  longer.  It  was  good 
to  see  it  once  more  from  this  point  of  S23ecial 
vantage.  And  when  I  reached  the  corner  of 
the  Notch  road  and  started  homeward,  how 
refreshing  was  the  breeze  that  met  me ! 
Coolness  after  heat,  ease  after  pain,  these  are 
near  the  acme  of  physical  comfort. 

Best  of  all  was  a  half-hour's  rest  under  a 
pine  tree,  facing  a  stretch  of  green  meadow, 
with  low  hills  beyond  it  westward  ;  a  perfect 
picture,  perfectly  "  composed."  In  the  fore- 
ground, just  across  the  way,  stood  a  thicket 
of  chokecherry  shrubs  shining  with  fruit, 
and  over  them,  on  one  side,  trailed  a  clema- 
tis vine  full  of  creamy  white  blossoms. 
Both  cherry  and  clematis  were  common 
everywhere,  often  in  each  other's  company, 
but  I  had  seen  none  quite  so  gracefully 
disposed.  No  gardener's  art  could  have 
managed  the  combination  so  well. 

Here  I  sat  and  dreamed.  I  was  near 
home,  with  time  to  spare  ;  the  wind  was  per- 


BERRY-TIME   FELICITIES  175 

fection,  and  the  day  also ;  I  had  walked  far 
enough  to  make  a  seat  welcome,  yet  not  so 
far  as  to  bring  on  sluggish  fatigue ;  and 
everything  in  sight  was  pure  beauty.  Life 
will  be  sweet  as  long  as  it  has  such  half- 
hours  to  offer  us.  Yet  somehow,  human 
nature  having  a  perverse  trick  of  letting 
good  suggest  its  opposite,  I  found  myself, 
all  at  once, 

"  In  that  sweet  mood  when  pleasant  thoughts 
Bring  sad  thoughts  to  the  mind." 

I  looked  at  the  garden  patch  and  the 
mowed  field,  and  thought  what  a  strange 
world  it  is  —  ill-made,  half -made,  or  unmade 

—  in  which  man  has  to  live,  or,  in  our  preg- 
nant every-day  phrase,  to  get  his  living  ;  a 
world  that  goes  whirling  on  its  axis  and  re- 
volving round  its  heat-and-light-giving  body, 

—  like  a  top  which  a  boy  has  set  spinning, 

—  now  roasted  and  parched,  now  drenched 
and  sodden,  now  frozen  dead;  a  world 
wherein,  as  our  good  American  stoic  com- 
plained, a  man  must  burn  a  candle  half  the 
time  in  order  to  see  to  live ;  a  world  to  which 
its  inhabitants  are  so  poorly  adapted  that 
a  day  of  comfortable  temperature  is  matter 


176        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

for  surprise  and  thankfulness;  a  world 
which  cannot  turn  round  but  that  men  die 
of  heat  and  by  freezing,  of  thirst  and  by 
drowning;  a  world  where  all  things,  appe- 
tite and  passion,  as  well  as  heat  and  cold, 
run  continually  to  murderous  extremes.  A 
strange  world,  surely,  which  men  have 
agreed  to  justify  and  condemn  in  the  same 
breath'  as  the  work  of  supreme  wisdom, 
ruined  by  original  sin.  Children  wiU  have 
an  explanation.  The  philosopher  says :  "  My 
son,  we  must  know  how  to  be  ignorant." 

So  my  thoughts  ran  away  with  me  till  the 
clematis  vine  and  the  cherry  bushes  brought 
me  back  to  myself.  The  present  hour  was 
good ;  the  birds  and  the  plants  were  happy ; 
and  so  was  I,  though  for  the  moment  I  had 
almost  forgotten  it.  The  mountain  had  its 
old  inscrutable,  beckoning,  admonishing,  be- 
nignant look.  The  wise  make  no  complaint. 
If  the  world  is  not  the  best  we  could  imagine, 
it  is  the  best  we  have  ;  and  such  as  it  is,  it  is 
a  pretty  comfortable  place  in  vacation  time 
and  fair  weather.  Let  me  not  be  among 
the  fools  who  waste  a  bright  to-day  in  fore- 
casting dull  to-morrows. 


EED   LEAF  DAYS 

"  Woods  over  woods  in  gay  theatric  pride." 

Goldsmith. 

White  Mountain  woods  are  generally 
at  their  brightest  in  the  last  few  days  of 
September.  This  year  I  had  but  a  week  or 
so  to  stay  among  them,  and  timed  my  visit 
accordingly,  arriving  on  the  22d.  As  I 
drove  over  the  hills  from  Littleton  to  Fran- 
conia  there  were  only  scattered  bits  of  high 
color  in  sight  —  a  single  tree  here  and  there, 
which  for  some  reason  had  hung  out  its  au- 
tumnal flag  in  advance  of  its  fellows.  It 
seemed  almost  impossible  that  all  the  world 
would  be  aglow  within  a  week ;  but  I  had 
no  real  misgivings.  Seed  time  and  harvest 
would  not  fail.  The  leaves  would  ripen  in 
their  time.  And  so  the  event  proved.  Day 
by  day  the  change  went  visibly  forward 
(visibly  yet  invisibly,  as  the  hands  go  round 


178        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

the  face  of  a  clock),  till  by  the  30th  the 
colors  were  as  brilliant  as  one  could  wish, 
though  with  less  than  the  usual  proportion 
of  yellow. 

The  white  birches,  which  should  have 
supplied  that  hue,  were  practically  leafless. 
A  smaU  caterpillar  (the  larva  of  a  tiny 
moth,  one  of  the  llicroleindopterd)  had 
eaten  the  greenness  from  every  white-birch 
leaf  in  the  whole  country  roundabout.  One 
side  of  Mount  Cleveland,  for  example, 
looked  from  a  distance  as  if  a  fire  had  swept 
over  it.  It  was  a  real  devastation ;  yet,  to 
my  surprise,  as  the  maple  groves  turned  red 
the  total  effect  was  little,  if  at  all,  less  beau- 
tiful than  in  ordinary  seasons.  The  leafless 
purplish  patches  gave  a  certain  indefinable 
openness  to  the  woods,  and  the  eye  felt  the 
duller  spaces  as  almost  a  relief.  I  could 
never  have  believed  that  destruction  so 
widespread  and  lamentable  could  work  so 
little  damage  to  the  appearance  of  the  land- 
scape. As  the  old  Hebrew  said,  everjrthing 
is  beautiful  in  its  time. 

We  were  four  at  table,  and  in  front  of 
the  evening  fireplace,  but  in  footing  it  we 


RED   LEAF  DAYS  179 

were  only  two.  Sometimes  we  walked  side 
by  side ;  sometimes  we  were  rods  apart. 
When  we  felt  like  it  we  talked;  then  we 
went  on  a  piece  in  silence,  as  Christians 
should.  Let  me  never  have  a  traveling 
companion  who  cannot  now  and  then  keep 
himself  company.  The  ideal  man  for  such 
a  role  is  one  who  is  wiser  than  yourself,  yet 
not  too  wise,  lest  there  be  lack  of  recipro- 
city, and  you  find  yourself  no  better  than  a 
boy  rusticating  with  a  tutor.  He  should  be 
even-tempered,  also,  well  furnished  with 
philosophy,  loving  fair  weather  and  good 
living,  but  taking  things  as  they  come ;  and 
withal,  while  not  unwilling  to  intimate  his 
own  preference  as  to  the  day's  route  and 
other  matters,  he  should  be  always  ready  to 
defer  with  all  cheerfulness  to  his  partner's 
wish.  "  The  ideal  man,"  I  say  ;  but  I  am 
thinking  of  a  real  one. 

We  have  become  well  known  in  the  valley, 
after  many  years ;  so  that,  although  we  are 
almost  the  only  walkers  there,  our  ambu- 
latory eccentricity  has  mostly  ceased  to  pro- 
voke comment.  At  all  events,  the  people 
no  longer  look  upon  us  as  men  broken  out 


180        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

of  Bedlam.  Time,  we  may  say,  has  estab- 
lislied  our  innocence.  If  a  recent  comer 
expresses  concern  as  we  go  past,  some  older 
resident  reassures  him.  "They  are  harm- 
less," he  says.  "  There  used  to  be  three  of 
them.  They  puU  weeds,  as  you  see ;  the 
older  one  has  his  hands  full  of  them  now. 
Yes,  they  are  branches  of  thorn  bushes. 
They  always  carry  opera  glasses,  too.  We 
used  to  think  they  were  looking  for  land  to 

buy.     Old ,  up  on  the  hill  in  Lisbon, 

tried  to  sell  them  his  farm  at  a  fancy  figure, 
but  they  did  n't  bite.  I  reckon  they  know 
a  thing  or  two,  for  all  their  queer  ways. 
One  of  'em  knows  how  to  write,  anyhow; 
he  is  always  taking  out  pencil  and  paper. 
There !  you  see  how  he  does.  He  sets  down 
a  word  or  two,  and  away  he  goes  again." 

It  is  aU  true.  We  looked  at  plants,  and 
sometimes  gathered  them.  The  botanist 
had  thorn  bushes  on  his  mind,  the  genus 
Cratcegiis  being  a  hard  one,  and,  as  I 
judged,  newly  under  revision.  I  professed 
no  knowledge  upon  so  recondite  a  subject, 
but  was  proud  to  serve  the  cause  of  science 
by  pointing  out  a  bush  here  and  there.    One 


RED   LEAF  DAYS  181 

hot  afternoon,  too,  after  a  pretty  long  fore- 
noon jaunt,  1  nearly  walked  my  legs  off,  as 
the  strong  old  saying  is,  following  my  leader 
far  up  the  Landaff  Valley  ("  down  Easton 
way  ")  to  visit  a  bush  of  which  some  one 
had  brought  him  word.  It  was  an  excellent 
specimen,  the  best  we  had  yet  seen ;  but  it 
was  nothing  new,  and  by  no  means  so  hand- 
some or  so  interesting  as  one  found  after- 
ward by  accident  on  our  way  to  Bethlehem. 
That  was  indeed  a  beauty,  and  its  abundant 
fruit  a  miracle  of  color. 

Once  I  detected  an  aster  which  the  bota- 
nist had  passed  by  and  yet,  upon  a  second 
look,  thought  worth  taking  home;  it  was 
probably  Lindleyaims^  he  said,  and  the 
event  proved  it;  and  at  another  time  my 
eye  caught  by  the  wayside  a  bunch  of 
chokecherry  shrubs  hung  with  yellow  clus- 
ters. We  were  in  a  carriage  at  the  time, 
four  old  Franconians,  and  not  one  of  us  had 
ever  seen  such  a  thing  here  before.  Three 
of  us  had  never  seen  such  a  thmg  anywhere ; 
for  my  own  part,  I  was  in  a  state  of  some- 
thing like  excitement;  but  the  Cratcegus 
collector,  who  knows  American  trees  if  any- 


182        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

body  does,  said :  "  Yes,  the  yellow  variety  is 
growing  in  the  Arnold  Arboretum,  and  is 
mentioned  in  the  latest  edition  of  Gray's 
Manual."  Bushes  have  been  found  at  Ded- 
ham,  Massachusetts,  it  appears.  The  maker 
of  the  Manual  seems  not  to  have  been  aware 
of  their  having  been  noticed  anywhere  else ; 
but  since  my  return  home  I  have  been  in- 
formed that  they  are  not  uncommon  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Montreal,  where  yellow 
chokecherries  are  "  found  with  the  ordinary 
form  in  the  markets  "  ! 

That  last  statement  is  bewilderinof.  Is 
there  anything  that  somebody,  somewhere, 
does  not  find  edible  ?  I  have  heard  of  eat- 
ers of  arsenic  and  of  slate  pencils ;  but 
chokecherries  for  sale  in  a  market !  If  the 
reader's  mouth  does  not  pucker  at  the  words 
he  must  be  wanting  in  imagination. 

In  Franconia  even  the  birds  seemed  to 
refuse  such  a  tongue-tying  diet.  The  shrubs 
loaded  with  fruit,  some  of  it  red  (wine 
color),  some  of  it  black,  —  the  latter  color 
predominating,  I  think,  —  stood  along  the 
roadside  mile  upon  mile.  Sooner  or  later, 
I  dare  say,  the  birds  must  have  recourse  to 


RED  LEAF  DAYS  183 

them ;  how  else  do  the  bushes  get  planted  so 
universally?  But  at  the  time  of  our  visit 
there  was  a  sufficiency  of  better  fare.  Rum 
cherries  were  still  plentiful,  and  birds,  like 
boys  in  an  apple  orchard,  and  like  sensible 
people  anywhere,  take  the  best  first. 

It  surprised  me,  while  I  was  here  some 
years  ago,  to  discover  how  fond  woodpeckers 
of  all  kinds  are  of  rum  cherries.  Even  the 
pileated  could  not  keep  away  from  the  trees, 
but  came  close  about  the  house  to  frequent 
them.  One  unfortunate  fellow,  I  regret  to 
say,  came  once  too  often.  The  sapsuckers, 
it  was  noticed,  went  about  the  business  after 
a  method  of  their  own.  Each  cherry  was 
carried  to  the  trunk  of  a  tree  or  to  a  tele- 
graph pole,  where  it  was  wedged  into  a 
crevice,  and  eaten  with  all  the  regular  wood- 
peckerish  attitudes  and  motions.  Doubtless 
it  tasted  better  so.  And  the  bird  might 
well  enough  have  said  that  he  was  behaving 
no  differently  from  human  beings,  who  for 
the  most  part  do  not  swallow  fruit  under 
the  branches,  but  take  it  indoors  and  feast 
upon  it  at  leisure,  and  with  something  hke 
ceremony.  The  trunk  of  a  tree  is  a  wood- 
pecker's table. 


184        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

And  for  aU  that,  Franconia  woodpeckers 
are  not  so  conservative  as  not  to  be  able 
to  take  up  with  substantial  improvements. 
They  know  a  good  thing  when  they  see  it. 
These  same  sapsuckers,  or  one  of  them,  was 
not  slow  to  discover  that  one  of  our  crew, 
an  entomological  collector,  had  set  up  here 
and  there  pieces  of  board  besmeared  with  a 
mixture  of  rum  and  sugar.  And  having 
made  the  discovery,  he  was  not  backward 
about  improving  it.  He  went  the  round  of 
the  boards  with  as  much  regularity  as  the 
moth  collector  himseK,  and  with  even  greater 
frequency.  And  no  wonder.  Here  was  a 
feast  indeed ;  victuals  and  drink  together ; 
insects  preserved  in  rum.  Happy  bird !  As 
the  most  famous  of  sentimental  travelers 
said  on  a  very  different  occasion,  "  How  I 
envied  him  his  feelings !  "  For  there  seems 
to  be  no  doubt  that  sapsuckers  love  a  liquid 
sweetness,  and  take  means  of  their  own  to 
secure  it. 

On  our  present  trip  my  walliing  mate  and 
I  stopped  to  examine  a  hemlock  trunk,  the 
bark  of  which  a  woodpecker  of  some  kind, 
almost  certainly   a  sapsucker,  had   riddled 


RED   LEAF  DAYS  185 

with  holes  till  it  looked  hke  a  nutmeg 
grater ;  and  the  most  noticeable  thing  about 
it  was  that  the  punctures  —  past  counting 
—  were  all  on  the  south  side  of  the  tree, 
where  the  sap  may  be  presumed  to  run  earh- 
est  and  most  freely.  Why  this  particular 
tree  was  chosen  and  the  others  left  is  a  dif- 
ferent question,  to  which  I  attempt  no  an- 
swer, though  I  have  little  doubt  that  the 
maker  of  the  holes  could  have  given  one. 
To  vary  a  half -true  Bible  text,  "All  the 
labor  of  a  woodpecker  is  for  his  mouth  ; " 
and  labor  so  prolonged  as  that  which  had 
been  expended  upon  this  hemlock  was  very 
unlikely  to  have  been  laid  out  without  a 
reason.  Every  judge  of  rum  cherries  knows 
that  some  trees  bear  incomparably  better 
fruit  than  others  growing  close  beside  them ; 
and  why  should  a  woodpecker,  a  specialist 
of  specialists,  be  less  intelligent  touching 
hemlock  trees  and  the  varying  quality  of 
their  juices  ?  A  creature  who  is  beholden  to 
nobody  from  the  time  he  is  three  weeks  old 
is  not  to  be  looked  down  upon  by  beings 
who  live,  half  of  them,  in  danger  of  starva- 
tion or  the  poorhouse. 


186        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Tlie  end  of  summer  is  tlie  top  of  the 
year  with  the  birds.  Their  numbers  are 
then  at  the  full.  After  that,  for  six  months 
and  more,  the  tide  ebbs.  Winter  and  the 
long  migi'atory  journeys  waste  them  like  the 
plagues  of  Egypt.  Not  more  than  half  of 
aU  that  start  southward  ever  live  to  come 
back  again. 

Of  this  every  bird-lover  takes  sorrowful 
account.  It  is  part  of  his  autumnal  feeling. 
If  he  sees  a  flock  of  bobolinks  or  of  red- 
winged  blackbirds,  he  thinks  of  the  South- 
ern rice  fields,  where  myriads  of  both  species 
—  "  rice-birds,"  one  as  much  as  the  other  — 
will  be  shot  without  mercy.  A  sky  fidl  of 
swallows  calls  up  a  picture  of  thousands 
lying  dead  at  once,  in  Florida  or  elsewhere, 
after  a  winter  storm.  A  September  hum- 
ming-bird leaves  him  wondering  over  its 
approaching  flight  to  Central  America  or  to 
Cuba.  Will  the  tiny  thing  ever  accomphsh 
that  amazing  passage  and  find  its  way  home 
again  to  New  England?  Perhaps  it  will; 
but  more  likely  not. 

For  the  present,  nevertheless,  the  birds 
are  all  in  high  spirits,  warbling,  twittering, 


RED  LEAF  DAYS  187 

feeding,  chasing  each  other  playfully  about, 
as  if  life  were  nothing  but  holiday.  Little 
they  know  of  the  future.  And  almost  as 
little  know  we.  Blessed  ignorance !  It 
gives  us  all,  birds  and  men  alike,  many  a 
good  hour.  If  my  playmate  of  long  ago  had 
foreseen  that  he  was  to  die  at  twenty,  he 
would  never  have  been  the  happy  boy  that  I 
remember.  Those  few  bright  years  he  had, 
though  he  had  no  more.  So  much  was  saved 
from  the  wreck. 

Thoughts  of  this  kind  come  to  me  as  I  re- 
call an  exhilarating  half  hour  of  our  recent 
stay  in  Franconia.  It  was  on  the  first  morn- 
ing, immediately  after  breakfast.  We  were 
barely  out  of  the  hotel  yard  before  we  turned 
into  a  bit  of  larch  and  alder  swamp  by  the 
shore  of  Gale  Kiver.  We  could  do  nothing 
else.  The  air  was  full  of  chirps  and  twit- 
ters, while  the  swaying,  feathery  tops  of  the 
larches  were  alive  with  flocks  of  whispering 
waxwings,  the  greater  part  of  them  birds 
of  the  present  year,  still  wearing  the  stripes 
which  in  the  case  of  so  many  species  are 
marks  of  juvenility.  If  individual  animals 
still  pass  through  a  development  answering 


188        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

to  that  which  the  race  as  a  whole  has  under- 
gone —  if  young  animals,  in  other  words,  re- 
semble their  remote  ancestors  —  then  the 
evolution  of  birds'  plumage  must  have  gone 
pretty  steadily  in  the  direction  of  plainness. 
Robins,  we  must  believe,  once  had  spotted 
breasts,  as  most  of  their  more  immediate  rel- 
atives have  to  this  day,  and  chipping  spar- 
rows and  white-throats  were  streaked  like 
our  present  song  sparrows  and  baywings. 
If  the  world  lasts  long  enough  (who  knows  ?) 
all  birds  may  become  monochromatic.  Wing- 
bars  and  all  such  convenient  marks  of  dis- 
tinction will  have  vanished.  Then,  surely, 
amateurish  ornithologists  will  have  their 
hands  full  to  name  all  the  birds  without  a 
gun.  Then  if,  by  any  miraculous  chance,  a 
copy  of  some  nineteenth  century  manual  of 
ornithology  shall  be  discovered,  and  some 
great  linguist  shall  succeed  in  translating  it, 
what  a  book  of  riddles  it  wdll  prove  !  Sa- 
vants will  form  theories  without  number  con- 
cerning it,  settling  down,  perhaps,  after  a 
thousand  years  of  controversy,  upon  the  be- 
lief that  the  author  of  the  ancient  work  was 
a  man  afflicted  with  color  blindness.     If  not, 


RED  LEAF  DAYS  189 

how  came  lie  to  describe  the  scarlet  tanager 
as  having  black  wings  and  tail,  and  the 
brown  thrasher  a  streaked  breast  ? 

These  are  afterthoughts.  At  the  moment 
we  were  busy,  eyes  and  ears,  taking  a  census 
of  the  swamp.  Besides  the  waxwings,  which 
were  much  the  most  numerous,  as  well  as  the 
most  in  sight  —  "  tree-toppers,"  one  of  my 
word-making  friends  calls  them  —  there  were 
robins,  song  sparrows,  white-tlrroats,  field 
sparrows,  goldfinches,  myrtle  warblers,  a 
Maryland  yellow-throat,  a  black-throated 
green,  a  Nashville  warbler,  a  Philadelphia 
vireo,  two  or  three  solitary  vireos,  one  or 
more  catbirds,  as  many  olive-backed  thrushes, 
a  white-breasted  nuthatch,  and  a  sapsucker. 
Others,  in  all  likelihood,  escaped  us. 

In  and  out  among  the  bushes  we  made 
our  way,  one  calling  to  the  other  softly  at 
each  new  development. 

"  What  was  that  ?  "  said  I.  "  Was  n't 
that  a  bobolink  ?  " 

"  It  sounded  like  it,"  answered  the  other 
listener. 

"  But  it  can't  be.     Hark  !  " 

The    quick,  musical   drop    of    sound  —  a 


190        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

*'  stillicidious  "  note,  my  friend  called  it  — 
was  heard  again.  No  ;  it  was  not  from  the 
sky,  as  we  had  thought  at  first,  but  from  a 
thicket  of  alders  just  behind  us.  Then  we 
recognized  it,  and  laughed  at  ourselves.  It 
was  the  staccato  whistle  of  an  olive-backed 
thrush,  a  sweet  familiarity,  over  which  I 
should  have  supposed  it  impossible  for  either 
of  us  to  be  puzzled. 

The  star  of  the  flock,  as  some  readers  will 
not  need  to  be  told,  having  marked  the  un- 
expected name  in  the  foregoing  list,  was  the 
Philadelphia  vireo.  What  a  bright  minute 
it  is  in  a  man's  vacation  when  such  a  stranger 
suddenly  hops  upon  a  branch  before  his  eyes  ! 
He  feels  almost  like  quoting  Keats.  "  Then 
felt  I,"  he  might  say,  not  with  full  serious- 
ness, perhaps,  — 

"  Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken." 

Yet  how  unconcerned  the  bird  seems  !  To 
him  it  is  all  one.  He  knows  nothing  of 
his  spectator's  emotions.  Rarity  ?  What  is 
that  ?  He  has  been  among  birds  of  his  own 
kind  ever  since  he  came  out  of  the  egg. 
Sedately  he  moves  from  twig  to  twig,  think- 


RED  LEAF  DAYS  191 

ing  only  of  another  insect.  This  minute  is 
to  him  no  better  than  any  other.  And  the 
man's  nerves  are  tingling  with  excitement. 

"You  will  hardly  believe  me,"  said  my 
companion,  who  had  hastened  forward  to 
look  at  the  stranger,  "  but  this  is  the  second 
one  I  have  ever  seen." 

But  why  should  I  not  believe  him  ?  It 
was  only  my  third  one.  Philadelphia  vireos 
do  not  feed  in  every  bush.  Be  it  added, 
however,  that  I  saw  another  before  the  week 
was  out. 

There  were  many  more  birds  here  now 
than  I  had  found  six  or  seven  weeks  before ; 
but  there  was  much  less  music.  In  early 
August  hermit  thrushes  sang  in  sundry 
places  and  at  all  hours ;  now  a  faint  clinch 
was  the  most  that  we  heard  from  them,  and 
that  but  once.  And  stiU  our  September  va- 
cation was  far  from  being  a  silent  one. 
Song  sparrows,  vesper  sparrows,  white- 
throats,  goldfinches,  robins,  solitary  vireos, 
chickadees  (whose  whistle  is  among  the 
sweetest  of  wild  music,  I  being  judge), 
phcebes,  and  a  catbird,  aU  these  sang  more 
or   less   frequently,  and   more  or  less  well, 


192        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

though  all  except  the  goldfinches  and  the 
chickadees  were  noticeably  out  of  voice. 
Once  a  grouse  drummed,  and  once  a  flicker 
called  hi,  hi,  just  as  in  springtime ;  and 
every  warm  day  set  the  hylas  peeping. 
Once,  too,  a  ruby-crowned  kinglet  sang  for 
us  with  all  freedom,  and  once  a  gold-crest. 
The  latter's  song  is  a  very  indifferent  per- 
formance, hardly  to  be  called  musical  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  word ;  nothing  but  his 
ordinary  zeer-zee-zee,  with  a  hurried,  jumbled, 
ineffective  coda ;  yet  it  suggests,  and  indeed 
is  much  like,  a  certain  few  notes  of  the  ruby- 
crown's  universally  admired  tune.  The  two 
songs  are  evidently  of  a  common  origin, 
though  the  ruby-crown's  is  so  immeasurably 
superior  that  one  of  my  friends  seemed  al- 
most offended  with  me,  not  long  ago,  when 
I  asked  him  to  notice  the  resemblance  be- 
tween the  two.  None  the  less,  the  resem- 
blance is  real.  The  homeliest  man  may 
bear  a  family  likeness  to  his  handsome 
brother,  though  it  may  show  itself  only  at 
times,  and  chance  acquaintances  may  easily 
be  unaware  of  its  existence. 

The   breeziest  voice  of   the  week  was  a 


RED  LEAF  DAYS  193 

plleated  woodpecker's  —  a  flicker's  resonant 
/ii,  hi^  in  a  fuller  and  clearer  tone ;  and  one 
of  the  most  welcome  voices  was  that  of  an 
ohve-backed  thrush.  We  were  strolling  past 
a  roadside  tangle  of  shrubbery  when  some 
unseen  bird  close  by  us  began  to  warble  con- 
fusedly (I  was  going  to  say  autumnally,  this 
kind  of  formless  improvisation  being  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  autumnal  season),  in  a 
barely  audible  voice.  My  first  thought  was 
of  a  song  sparrow ;  but  that  could  hardly  be, 
and  I  looked  at  my  companion  to  see  what 
he  would  suggest.  He  was  in  doubt  also. 
Then,  all  at  once,  in  the  midst  of  the  vocal 
jumble,  our  ears  caught  a  familiar  strain. 
"  Yes,  yes,"  said  I,  "  a  Swainson  thrush," 
and  I  fell  to  whistling  the  time  softly  for  the 
benefit  of  the  performer,  whom  I  fancied, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  to  be  a  youngster  at  his 
practice.  Young  or  old,  the  echo  seemed 
not  to  put  him  out,  and  we  stood  still  again 
to  enjoy  the  lesson  ;  disconnected,  unrelated 
notes,  and  then,  of  a  sudden,  the  regular 
Swainson  measure.  I  had  not  heard  it  be- 
fore since  the  May  migration. 

Every  bird  season  has  pecuharities  of  its 


194        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

own,  in  Franconia  as  elsewhere.  This  fall, 
for  example,  there  were  no  crossbills,  even 
at  Lonesome  Lake,  where  we  have  commonly- 
found  both  species.  White-crowned  spar- 
rows were  rare  ;  perhaps  we  were  a  little  too 
early  for  the  main  flight.  We  saw  one  bird 
on  September  23,  and  two  on  the  26th. 
Another  noticeable  thing  was  a  surprising 
scarcity  of  red-beUied  nuthatches.  We  spoke 
often  of  the  great  contrast  in  this  respect 
between  the  present  season  and  that  of  three 
years  ago.  Then  all  the  woods,  both  here 
and  at  Moosilauke,  fairly  swarmed  with  these 
birds,  till  it  seemed  as  if  aU  the  Canadian 
nuthatches  of  North  America  were  holding 
a  White  Mountain  congress.  The  air  was 
full  of  their  nasal  calls.  Now  we  could  travel 
all  day  without  hearing  so  much  as  a  sylla- 
ble. The  tide,  for  some  reason,  had  set  in 
another  direction,  and  Franconia  was  so  much 
the  poorer. 


AMEKICAN   SKYLAKKS 

"  Right  hard  it  was  for  wight  which  did  it  heare, 
To  read  what  manner  musicke  that  mote  bee." 

Spenser. 

On  the  second  day  after  our  arrival  in 
Franconia  ^  we  were  following  a  dry,  sandy 
stretch  of  valley  road  —  on  one  of  our  far 
vorite  rounds  —  when  a  bird  flew  across  it, 
just  before  us,  and  dropped  into  the  barren, 
closely  cropped  cattle  pasture  on  our  left. 
Something  indefinable  in  its  manner  or  ap- 
pearance excited  my  suspicions,  and  I  stole 
up  to  the  fence  and  looked  over.  The  bird 
was  a  horned  lark,  the  first  one  that  I  had 
ever  set  eyes  on  in  the  nesting  season.  He 
seemed  to  be  very  hungry,  snapping  up  in- 
sects with  the  greatest  avidity,  and  was  not 
in  the  least  disturbed  by  our  somewhat  eager 
attentions.     It  was  plain  at  the  first  glance 

1  This  and  the  two  succeeding  chapters  are  records  of 
a  vacation  visit  in  May,  1901. 


196        FOOTING  IT  IN   FRANCONIA 

that  he  was  of  the  Western  variety,  —  a 
prairie  horned  lark,  in  other  words,  —  for 
even  in  the  best  of  lights  the  throat  and  sides 
of  the  head  were  white,  or  whitish,  with  no 
perceptible  tinge  of  yellow. 

The  prairie  lark  is  one  of  the  birds  that 
appear  to  be  shifting  or  extending  their 
breeding  range.  It  was  first  described  as  a 
sub-species  in  1884,  and  has  since  been 
found  to  be  a  summer  resident  of  northern 
Vermont  and  New  Hampshire,  and,  in 
smaller  numbers,  of  western  Massachusetts. 
It  is  not  impossible,  expansion  being  the  or- 
der of  the  day,  that  some  of  us  may  live  long 
enough  to  see  it  take  up  its  abode  within 
sight  of  the  gilded  State  House  dome. 

My  own  previous  acquaintance  with  it  had 
been  confined  to  the  sight  of  a  few  migrants 
along  the  seashore  in  the  autumn,  although 
my  companion  on  the  present  trip  had  seen 
it  once  about  a  certain  upland  farm  here  in 
Franconia.  That  was  ten  years  ago,  and  we 
have  again:  and  again  sought  it  there  since, 
without  avail. 

Our  bird  of  to-day  interested  me  by  dis- 
playing his  "  horns,"  —  curious  adornments 


AMERICAN  SKYLARKS  197 

which  I  had  never  been  able  to  make  out  be- 
fore, except  in  pictures.  They  were  not  car- 
ried erect,  —  like  an  owl's  "  ears,"  let  us 
say,  —  but  projected  backwards,  and  with 
the  head  at  a  certain  angle  showed  with  per- 
fect distinctness.  The  bird  would  do  no- 
thing but  eat,  and  as  our  own  dinner  awaited 
us  we  continued  our  tramp.  We  would  try 
to  see  more  of  him  and  his  mate  at  another 
time,  we  promised  ourselves. 

First,  however,  we  paid  a  visit  (that  very 
afternoon)  to  the  upland  farm  just  now 
spoken  of.  "  Mears's,"  we  always  call  it. 
Perhaps  the  larks  would  be  there  also.  But 
we  found  no  sign  of  them,  and  the  bachelor 
occupant  of  the  house,  who  left  his  plough 
in  the  beanfield  to  offer  greeting  to  a  pair  of 
strangers,  assured  us  that  nothing  answering 
to  our  description  had  ever  been  seen  there 
within  his  time;  an  assertion  that  might 
mean  little  or  much,  of  course,  though  he 
seemed  to  be  a  man  who  had  his  eyes  open. 

This  happened  on  May  17.  Six  days  af- 
terward, in  company  with  an  entomological 
collector,  we  were  again  in  the  dusty  valley. 
I  went  into  the  larch  swamp  in  search  of  a 


198        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Cape  May  warbler  —  found  here  two  years 
before  —  one  of  the  very  best  of  our  Fran- 
conia  birds ;  and  the  entomologist  stayed 
near  by  with  her  net  and  bottles,  w^hile  the 
second  man  kept  on  a  mile  farther  up  the 
vaUey  to  look  for  thorn-bush  specimens.  So 
we  drove  the  sciences  abreast,  as  it  were. 
My  own  hunt  was  immediately  rewarded, 
and  when  the  botanist  returned  I  thousfht  to 
stir  his  envy  by  announcing  my  good  for- 
tune ;  but  he  answered  with  a  smile  that  he 
too  had  seen  something ;  he  had  seen  the 
prairie  lark  soaring  and  singing.  "  Well 
done  I  "  said  I ;  "  now  you  may  look  for  the 
Cape  May,  and  incidentally  feed  the  mos- 
quitoes, and  the  lady  and  I  will  get  into  the 
carriage  and  take  our  turn  with  Otocorisy 
So  said,  so  done.  We  drove  to  the  spot,  the 
driver  stopped  the  horses  opposite  a  strip  of 
ploughed  land,  and  behold,  there  was  the 
bird  at  that  very  moment  high  in  the  air, 
hovering  and  singing.  It  was  not  much  of 
a  song,  I  thought,  though  the  entomologist, 
hearing  partly  with  the  eye,  no  doubt,  pro- 
nounced it  beautiful.  It  was  most  interest- 
ing, whatever  might  be  said  of  its  musical 


AMERICAN  SKYLARKS  199 

quality,  and  as  we  drove  homeward  my  com- 
panion and  I  agreed  that  we  would  take  up 
our  quarters  for  a  day  or  two  at  the  nearest 
house,  and  study  it  more  at  our  leisure.  Pos- 
sibly we  should  happen  upon  a  nest. 

In  the  forenoon  of  May  25,  therefore,  we 
found  ourselves  comfortably  settled  in  the 
very  midst  of  a  lark  colony.  The  birds,  of 
which  there  were  at  least  five  (besides  two 
pairs  found  haK  a  mile  farther  up  the  val- 
ley), were  to  be  seen  or  heard  at  almost  any 
minute ;  now  in  the  road  before  the  house, 
now  in  the  ploughed  land  close  by  it,  now 
in  one  of  the  cattle  pastures,  and  now  on 
the  roofs  of  the  buildings.  One  fellow  spent 
a  great  part  of  his  time  upon  the  ridgepole 
of  the  barn  (a  pretty  high  structure),  com- 
monly standing  not  on  the  very  angle  or 
ridge,  but  an  inch  or  two  below  it,  so  that 
very  often  only  his  head  and  shoulders  would 
be  visible.  Once  I  saw  one  dusting  liimseK 
in  the  rut  of  the  road.  He  went  about  the 
work  with  great  thoroughness  and  unmis- 
takable enjoyment,  cocking  his  head  and 
rubbing  first  one  cheek  and  then  the  other 
into  the  sand.  "  Cleanliness  is  next  to  god- 
liness," I  thought  I  heard  him  saying. 


200        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

So  far  as  we  could  judge  from  our  two 
days'  observation,  the  birds  were  most  mu- 
sical in  the  latter  half  of  the  afternoon,  say 
from  four  o'clock  to  six.  Contrary  to  what 
we  should  have  expected,  we  saw  absolutely 
no  ascensions  in  the  early  morning  or  after 
sunset,  although  we  did  see  more  than  one 
at  high  noon.  It  is  most  likely,  I  think, 
that  the  birds  sing  at  all  hours,  as  the  spirit 
moves  them,  just  as  the  nightingale  does, 
and  the  hermit  thrush  and  the  vesper  spar- 
row. 

As  for  the  quality  and  manner  of  the  song, 
with  all  my  listening  and  studying  I  could 
never  hit  upon  a  word  with  which  to  char- 
acterize it.  The  tone  is  dry,  guttural,  inex- 
pressive ;  not  exactly  to  be  called  harsh,  per- 
haps, but  certainly  not  in  any  true  sense  of 
the  word  musical.  When  we  first  heard  it, 
in  the  distance  (let  the  qualification  be 
noted),  the  same  thought  came  to  both  of 
us,  —  a  kingbird's  formless,  hurrying  twit- 
ters. There  is  no  rhythm,  no  melody,  no- 
thing to  be  called  phrasing  or  modulation,  — 
a  mere  jumble  of  "  splutterings  and  chipper- 
ings."    Every  note  is  by  itself,  having  to  my 


AMERICAN   SKYLARKS  201 

ear  no  relation  to  anything  before  or  after. 
The  most  striking  and  distinguishing  char- 
acteristic of  it  all  is  the  manner  in  which  it 
commonly  hurries  to  a  conclusion  —  as  if 
the  clock  were  running  down.  "  The  hand 
has  shpped  from  the  lever,"  I  more  than  once 
found  myself  saying.  I  was  thinking  of  a 
motorman  who  tightens  his  brake,  and  tight- 
ens it  again,  and  then  all  at  once  lets  go  his 
grip.  At  this  point,  this  sudden  accelera- 
tion and  conclusion,  my  companion  and  I 
always  laughed.  The  humor  of  it  was  irre- 
sistible. It  stood  in  such  ludicrous  contrast 
with  all  that  had  gone  before,  —  so  halting 
and  labored  ;  like  a  man  who  stammers  and 
stutters,  and  then,  finding  his  tongue  unex- 
pectedly loosened,  makes  all  speed  to  finish. 
Sometimes  —  most  frequently,  perhaps  —  the 
strain  was  very  brief ;  but  at  other  times  a 
bird  would  sit  on  a  stone,  or  a  fence-post,  or 
a  ridgepole,  and  chatter  almost  continuously 
by  the  quarter-hour.  Even  then,  however, 
this  comical  hurried  phrase  would  come  in 
at  more  or  less  regular  intervals.  I  ima- 
gined that  the  larks  looked  upon  it  as  the 
highest  reach  of  their  art  and  delivered  it 


202        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

with  special  satisfaction.  If  they  did,  I 
could  not  blame  them  ;  to  us  it  was  by  aU 
odds  the  most  interesting  part  of  their  very 
limited  repertory. 

The  most  interesting  part,  I  mean,  of  that 
which  appealed  to  the  ear ;  for,  as  will  read- 
ily be  imagined,  the  ear's  part  was  reaUy 
much  the  smaller  half  of  the  performance. 
The  wonder  of  it  aU  was  not  the  music  by 
itself  (that  was  hardly  better  than  an  odd- 
ity, a  thing  of  which  one  might  soon  have 
enough),  but  the  music  combined  with  the 
manner  of  its  delivery,  while  the  singer  was 
climbing  heavenward.  For  the  bird  is  a  true 
skylark.  Like  his  more  famous  cousin,  he 
does  not  disdain  the  humblest  perch  —  a 
mere  clod  of  earth  answers  his  purpose ;  but 
his  glory  is  to  sing  at  heaven's  gate. 

His  method  at  such  times  was  a  surprise 
to  me.  He  starts  from  the  ground  silently, 
with  no  appearance  of  lyrical  excitement,  and 
his  flight  at  first  is  low,  precisely  as  if  he  were 
going  only  to  the  next  field.  Soon,  however, 
he  begins  to  mount,  beating  the  air  with 
quick  strokes  and  then  shutting  his  wings 
against  his  sides  and  forcing  himself  upward. 


AMERICAN  SKYLARKS  203 

"Diving  upward,"  was  the  word  1  found 
myself  using.  Up  he  goes,  —  up,  up,  up, 
"  higher  still,  and  higher,"  —  till  after  a 
while  he  breaks  into  voice.  While  singing 
he  holds  his  wings  motionless,  stiffly  out- 
stretched, and  his  tail  widely  spread,  as  if  he 
were  doing  his  utmost  to  transform  himself 
into  a  parachute  —  as  no  doubt  he  is.  Then, 
the  brief,  hurried  strain  delivered,  he  beats 
the  air  again  and  makes  another  shoot  hea- 
venward. The  whole  display  consists  of  an 
alternation  of  rests  accompanied  by  song  (you 
can  always  see  the  music,  though  it  is  often 
inaudible),  and  renewed  upward  pushes. 

In  the  course  of  his  flight  the  bird  covers 
a  considerable  field,  since  as  a  matter  of 
course  he  cannot  ascend  vertically.  He  rises, 
perhaps,  directly  at  your  feet,  but  before  he 
comes  down,  which  may  be  in  one  minute  or 
in  ten,  he  will  have  gone  completely  round 
you  in  a  broad  circle  ;  so  that,  to  follow  him 
continuously  (sometimes  no  easy  matter,  his 
altitude  being  so  great  and  the  light  so  daz- 
zling), you  wiU  be  compelled  almost  to  put 
your  neck  out  of  joint.  In  our  own  case, 
we  generally  did  not  see  him  start,  but  were 


204        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

made  aware  of  what  was  going  on  by  hear- 
ing the  notes  overhead. 

One  grand  flight  I  did  see  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  and  it  was  wonderful,  amazing, 
astounding.  So  I  thought,  at  all  events. 
There  was  no  telUng,  of  course,  what  altitude 
the  bird  reached,  but  it  might  have  been 
miles,  so  far  as  the  effect  upon  the  beholder's 
emotions  was  concerned.  It  seemed  as  if 
the  fellow  never  would  be  done.  "  Higher 
still,  and  higher."  Again  and  again  this 
line  of  Shelley  came  to  my  lips,  as,  after 
every  bar  of  music,  the  bird  pushed  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  sky.  At  last  he  came 
down  ;  and  this,  my  friend  and  I  always 
agreed,  was  the  most  exciting  moment  of  all. 
He  closed  his  wings  and  literally  shot  to  the 
ground  head  first,  like  an  arrow.  "  Wonder- 
ful !  "  said  I,  "  wonderful !  "  And  the  other 
man  said :  "  If  I  could  do  that  I  would 
never  do  anything  else." 

Here  my  story  might  properly  enough  end. 
The  nest  of  which  we  had  talked  was  not 
discovered.  My  own  beating  over  of  the 
fields  came  to  nothing,  and  my  companion, 
as  if  unwilling  to  deprive  me  of  a  possible 


AMERICAN  SKYLARKS  205 

honor,  contented  himself  with  telling  me 
that  I  was  looking  in  the  wrong  place. 
Perhaps  I  was.  It  is  easy  to  criticise.  For 
a  minute,  indeed,  one  of  the  farm-hands  ex- 
cited our  hopes.  He  had  found  a  nest 
which  might  be  the  lark's,  he  tliought ;  it 
was  on  the  ground,  at  any  rate  ;  but  his  de- 
scription of  the  eggs  put  an  end  to  any  such 
possibility,  and  when  he  led  us  to  the  nest 
it  turned  out  to  be  occupied  by  a  hermit 
thrush.  Near  it  he  showed  us  a  grouse  sit- 
ting upon  her  eggs  under  a  roadside  fence. 
It  was  while  repairing  the  fence  that  he  had 
made  his  discoveries.  He  had  an  eye  for 
birds.  ''  Those  little  humming-birds,"  he 
remarked,  "  they  're  quite  an  animal."  And 
he  was  an  observer  of  hiunan  nature  as  well. 
"  That  fellow,"  he  said,  speaking  of  a  young 
man  who  was  perhaps  rather  good-natured 
than  enterprising,  "  that  fellow  don't  do 
enouo:h  to  break  the  Sabbath." 

And  this  suggests  a  bit  of  confession. 
We  were  sitting  upon  the  piazza,  on  Sunday 
afternoon,  when  a  lark  sang  pretty  far  off. 
"  Well,"  said  the  botanist,  "  he  sings  as  well 
as  a  savanna  sparrow,  anyhow."      "  A  sa- 


206        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

vanna  sparrow ! "  said  I ;  and  at  the  word 
we  looked  at  each  other.  The  same  thought 
had  come  to  both  of  us.  Several  days  be- 
fore, in  another  part  of  the  township,  we  had 
heard  in  the  distance  —  in  a  field  inhabited 
by  savanna  and  vesper  sparrows  —  an  ut- 
terly strange  set  of  bird-notes.  "  What  is 
that  ?  "  we  both  asked.  The  strain  was  re- 
peated. "  Oh,  well,"  said  I,  "  that  must  be 
the  work  of  a  crazy  savanna.  Birds  are 
given  to  such  freaks,  you  know."  The  grass 
was  wet,  we  had  a  long  forenoon's  jaunt  be- 
fore us,  and  although  my  companion,  as  he 
said,  "  took  no  stock "  in  my  explanation, 
we  passed  on.  Now  it  flashed  upon  us  both 
that  what  we  had  heard  was  the  song  of  a 
prairie  lark.  "  I  believe  it  was,"  said  the 
botanist.  ''  I  know  it  was,"  said  I ;  "  I 
would  wager  anjiihing  upon  it."  And  it 
was ;  for  after  returning  to  the  hotel  our 
first  concern  was  to  go  to  the  place  —  only 
half  a  mile  away  —  and  find  the  bird.  And 
not  only  so,  but  twenty-four  hours  later  we 
saw  one  soaring  in  his  most  ecstatic  manner 
over  another  field,  a  mile  or  so  beyond,  be- 
side the  same  road. 


AMERICAN  SKYLARKS  207 

The  present  was  a  good  season  for  horned 
larks  in  Franconia,  we  told  ourselves.  Two 
years  ago,  at  this  same  time  of  the  year,  I 
had  gone  more  than  once  past  all  these 
places.  If  the  birds  were  here  then  I  over- 
looked them.  The  thing  is  not  impossible, 
of  course  ;  there  is  no  limit  to  human  dull- 
ness ;  but  I  prefer  to  think  otherwise.  A 
man,  even  an  amateur  ornithologist,  should 
believe  himself  innocent  until  he  is  proved 
guilty. 


A  QUIET  MOENING 

"  Such  was  the  bright  world  on  the  first  seventh  day." 

Henry  Vaughan. 

It  is  Sunday,  May  26,  the  brightest,  pleas- 
antest,  most  comfortable  of  forenoons.  I  am 
seated  in  the  sun  at  the  base  of  an  ancient 
stone  wall,  near  the  road  that  runs  along  the 
hillside  above  the  Landaff  Valley.  Behind 
me  is  a  little  farmhouse,  long  since  gone  to 
ruin.  At  my  feet,  rather  steeply  inclined, 
is  an  old  cattle  pasture  thickly  strewn  with 
massive  boulders.  The  prospect  is  one  of 
those  that  I  love  best.  In  the  foreground, 
directly  below,  is  the  valley,  freshly  green, 
and,  as  it  looks  from  this  height,  as  level  as 
a  floor.  Alder  rows  mark  the  winding 
course  of  the  river,  and  on  the  farther  side, 
close  against  the  forest,  runs  a  road,  though 
the  eye,  of  itself,  would  hardly  know  it. 

Across  the  valley  are  the  glorious  newly 


A  QUIET  MORNING  209 

clad  woods,  more  beautiful  than  words  can 
begin  to  tell ;  and  beyond  them  rise  the 
mountains :  Moosilauke,  far  enough  away  to 
be  blue ;  the  shapely  Kinsman  range,  at 
whose  long  green  slopes  no  man  need  tire  of 
looking;  rocky  Lafayette,  directly  in  front 
of  me ;  Haystack,  with  its  leaning  knob  ; 
the  sombre  Twins  and  the  more  Alpine- 
looking  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Adams. 
Farther  to  the  north  are  the  low  hills  of 
Cleveland  and  Agassiz.  A  magnificent 
horizon.  Lafayette,  Washington,  Jefferson, 
and  Adams  are  still  flecked  with  snow. 
And  over  the  mountains  is  the  sky,  with 
high  white  clouds,  cirrus  and  cumulus.  1 
look  first  at  the  mountains,  then  at  the  val- 
ley, which  is  filled  with  sunlight  as  a  cup 
is  fiUed  with  wine.  The  level  foreground  is 
the  essential  thing.  Without  it  the  gi-and- 
est  of  mountain  prospects  is  never  quite 
complete. 

Swallows  circle  about  me  continually,  a 
phoebe  caUs  at  short  intervals,  and  less  often 
I  hear  the  sweet  voice  of  a  bluebird.  Both 
phoebe  and  bluebird  are  most  delightfully 
plentiful  in  all  this  fair  mountain  country. 


210        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

They  are  of  my  own  mind :  they  like  old 
farms  within  sight  of  hiUs.  Crows  caw,  a 
jay  screams,  and  now  and  then  the  hurrying 
drumbeats  of  a  grouse  come  to  my  ears. 
Somewhere  in  the  big  sugar  grove  behind 
me  a  great-crested  flycatcher  has  been  shout- 
ing almost  ever  since  I  sat  down.  The 
"  great  screaming  flycatcher,"  he  should  be 
called.  His  voice  is  more  to  the  point  than 
his  crest.     He  loves  the  sound  of  it. 

How  radiantly  beautiful  the  red  maple 
groves  are  just  now !  I  can  see  two,  one 
near,  the  other  far  off,  both  in  varying 
shades  of  red,  yellow,  and  green.  The  earth 
wears  them  as  ornaments,  and  is  as  proud  of 
them,  I  dare  believe,  as  of  the  Parthenon. 
They  are  bright,  but  not  too  bright.  They 
speak  of  youth  —  and  the  eye  hears  them. 
A  red-eye  preaches  as  if  he  knew  the  day 
of  the  week.  What  a  gift  of  reiteration ! 
"  Buy  the  truth,"  he  says.  "  Going,  going ! " 
But  it  is  never  gone.  Down  the  valley  road 
goes  an  open  carriage.  In  it  are  a  man  and 
a  woman,  the  woman  with  a  parasol  over  her 
head.  A  song  sparrow  sings  his  Httle  tune, 
and  the  bluebird  gives  himself  up  to  war- 


A  QUIET  MORNING  211 

bling.  Few  voices  can  surpass  liis  for  sweet- 
ness and  expressiveness.  The  grouse  drums 
again  (let  every  bird  be  bappy  in  bis  own 
way),  a  myrtle  warbler  trills  (a  talker  to 
himself),  and  a  passing  goldfinch  drops  a 
melodious  measure.  All  the  chokecherry 
bushes  are  now  in  white.  The  day  may  be 
Whitsunday  for  aU  that  my  unchurclily 
mind  can  say.  Red  cherries,  which  whit- 
ened the  world  a  few  days  ago,  are  fast  fol- 
lowing the  shadbushes,  which  have  been 
out  of  flower  for  a  week.  Apple  trees,  too, 
have  passed  the  height  of  their  splendor. 
The  vernal  procession  moves  like  a  man  in 
haste. 

The  sun  grows  warm.  I  will  betake  my- 
self to  the  maple  grove  and  sit  in  the 
shadow ;  but  first  I  notice  in  the  grass  by 
the  waU  an  abundance  of  tiny  veronica 
flowers  (speedwell)  — white,  streaked  with 
purple,  as  I  perceive  when  I  pluck  one. 
Not  a  line  but  runs  true.  Everything  is 
beautiful  in  its  time ;  the  little  speedwell  no 
less  than  the  valley  and  the  mountain.  A 
red  squirrel,  far  out  on  a  tilting  elm  spray, 
is  eating  his  fill  of  the  green  fruit.    Mother 


212        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

Earth  takes  care  of  her  children.  She 
raises  ehn  seeds  as  man  raises  wheat.  And 
foolish  man  wonders  sometimes  at  what  he 
thinks  her  waste  of  vital  energy. 

I  have  found  a  seat  upon  a  prostrate 
maple  trunk,  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  grove, 
so  huge  of  girth  that  it  was  almost  a  gym- 
nastic feat  to  climb  into  my  position.  Here 
I  can  see  the  valley  and  the  mountains  only 
in  parts,  between  the  leafy  intervening 
branches.  Which  way  of  seeing  is  the  bet- 
ter I  will  not  seek  to  determine.  Both  are 
good  —  both  are  better  than  either.  A  fly- 
catcher near  me  is  saying  chehec  with  such 
emphasis  that  though  I  cannot  see  him  I 
can  imagine  that  he  is  almost  snapping  his 
head  off  at  every  utterance.  Much  farther 
away  is  a  relative  of  his ;  we  call  him 
the  olive-side.  (I  wonder  what  name  the 
birds  have  for  us.)  Que-quee-o,  he  whistles 
in  the  clearest  of  tones.  He  is  one  of  the 
good  ones.  And  how  well  his  voice  "  car- 
ries "  —  as  if  one  grove  were  speaking  to 
another ! 

About  my  feet  are  creamy  white  tiarella 
spires  and  pretty  blue  violets.     The  air  is 


A  QUIET  MORNING  213 

full  of  the  hum  of  insects,  but  they  are  all 
innocent.  I  sit  under  my  own  beech  and 
maple  tree,  with  none  to  molest  or  make  me 
afraid.  How  many  times  I  have  heard 
something  like  that  on  a  Sunday  forenoon ! 
Year  in  and  out,  our  dear  old  preacher  could 
never  get  through  his  "  long  prayer  "  with- 
out it.  He  would  not  be  sorry  to  know  that 
I  think  of  him  now  in  this  natural  temple. 

An  unseen  Nashville  warbler  suddenly 
announces  himself.  "  If  you  must  scribble," 
he  says,  "  my  name  is  as  good  as  anybody's." 
The  little  flycatcher  has  not  yet  dislocated 
his  neck.  Chehec^  chehec,  he  vociferates. 
The  swallows  no  longer  come  about  me. 
They  care  not  for  groves.  They  are  for  the 
open  sky,  the  grass  fields,  and  the  sun ;  but 
I  hear  them  twittering  overhead.  If  I  could 
be  a  bird,  I  think  I  would  be  a  swallow. 
Hark!  Yes,  there  is  the  syllabled  whistle 
of  a  white-breasted  nuthatch.  He  must  go 
into  my  vacation  bird-list  —  No.  79,  Sitta 
carolinensis.  If  he  would  have  shown  him- 
self sooner  he  should  have  had  a  higher 
place.  And  now,  to  my  surprise,  1  hear  the 
rollicking  voice  of  a  bobohnk.    The  meadow 


214        FOOTING  IT   IN  FRANCONIA 

below  contains  many  of  liis  happy  kind,  and 
one  of  tliem  has  come  up  within  hearing  to 
brighten  my  page. 

All  the  time  I  have  sat  here  I  have  been 
hoping  to  hear  the  hearty,  "  full-throated  " 
note  of  a  yellow-throated  vireo.  This  is  the 
only  place  in  Franconia  where  I  have  ever 
heard  it  —  two  years  ago  this  month.  But 
the  bird  seems  not  to  be  here  now,  and  I 
must  not  stay  longer.  My  companion,  who 
has  gone  higher  up  the  hill  to  visit  a  thorn 
bush,  wiU  be  expecting  me  on  the  bridge 
by  the  old  grist-mill. 

Before  I  can  get  away,  however,  I  add 
another  name  to  my  bird-list,  —  a  welcome 
name,  the  wood  pewee's.  He  has  just  ar- 
rived from  the  South,  I  suppose.  What  a 
sweetly  modulated,  plaintive-sounding  whis- 
tle !  How  different  from  the  bobolink's 
"  jest  and  youthful  joUity !  "  And  now  the 
crested  breaks  out  again  all  at  once,  after 
a  long  silence.  There  is  a  still  stronger 
contrast.  Four  flycatchers  are  in  voice  to- 
gether :  the  crested,  the  olive-sided,  the  least, 
and  the  wood  pewee.  I  have  heard  them  all 
within  the  space  of  a  minute.     As  soon  as  I 


A  QUIET  MORNING  215 

am  in  the  valley  I  shall  hear  the  alder  fly- 
catcher, and  when,  braving  the  mosquitoes, 
I  venture  into  the  tamarack  swamp  a  little 
way  to  look  at  the  Cape  May  warbler  (I 
know  the  very  spot)  I  shall  doubtless  hear 
the  yellow-belly.  These,  with  the  kingbird 
and  the  phcebe,  which  are  about  all  the 
farms,  make  the  full  New  Hampshire  con- 
tingent. No  doubt  there  are  flies  enough 
for  aU  of  them. 

As  I  start  to  leave  the  grove,  stepping 
over  beds  of  round-leaved  violets  and  spring 
beauties,  both  out  of  flower  already,  I  start 
at  the  sound  of  an  unmusical  note,  which  I 
do  not  immediately  recognize,  but  which  in 
another  instant  I  settle  upon  as  a  sapsucker's. 
This  is  a  bird  at  whose  absence  my  compan- 
ion and  I  have  frequently  expressed  sur- 
prise, remembering  how  common  we  have 
found  him  in  previous  visits.  I  go  in  pur- 
suit at  once,  and  presently  come  upon  him. 
He  is  in  extremely  bright  plmnage,  his 
crown  and  his  throat  blood  red.  He  goes 
down  straightway  as  No.  81.  I  am  having 
a  prosperous  day.  Three  new  names  within 
half  an  hour  !     Idling  in  a  sugar  orchard 


216        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

is  good  for  a  man's  bird-list  as  well  as  for 
his  sold. 

An  oven-bird  is  declaiming,  a  blue  yel- 
low-back is  practicing  scales,  and  a  field 
sparrow  is  chanting.  And  even  as  I  pencil 
their  names  a  nuthatch  (the  very  one  I  have 
been  hearing)  flies  to  a  maple  trunk  and 
alights  for  a  moment  at  the  door  of  his  nest. 
Without  question  he  passed  a  morsel  to 
his  brooding  mate,  though  I  was  not  quick 
enough  to  see  him.  Yes,  within  a  minute 
or  two  he  is  there  again  ;  but  the  sitting 
bird  does  not  appear  at  the  entrance ;  her 
mate  thrusts  his  bill  into  the  door  instead. 
The  happy  pair!  There  is  much  family 
life  of  the  best  sort  in  a  wood  hke  this. 
No  doubt  there  are  husbands  and  wives, 
so  called,  in  Franconia  as  well  as  in  other 
places,  who  might  profitably  heed  the  old 
injunction,  "  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air." 


m  THE  LANDAFF  VALLEY 

The  greatest  ornithological  novelty  of  our 
present  visit  to  Franconia  was  the  prairie 
horned  larks,  whose  lyrical  raptures,  falling 
"from  heaven  or  near  it,"  I  have  already 
done  my  best  to  describe.  The  rarest  bird 
(for  there  is  a  difference  between  novelty 
and  rarity)  was  a  Cape  May  warbler  ;  the 
most  surprisingly  spectacular  was  a  duck. 
Let  me  speak  first  of  the  warbler. 

Two  years  ago  I  found  a  Cape  May  set- 
tled in  a  certain  spot  in  an  extensive  tract  of 
valley  woods.  The  manner  of  the  discovery 
—  which  was  purely  accidental,  the  bird's 
voice  being  so  faint  as  to  be  inaudible  be- 
yond the  distance  of  a  few  rods  —  and  the 
pains  I  took  to  keep  him  under  surveillance 
for  the  remainder  of  my  stay,  so  as  to  make 
practically  sure  of  his  intention  to  pass  the 
summer  here,  have  been  fully  recounted  in  a 
previous  chapter.     The  experience  was  one 


218        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

of  those  which  fill  an  enthusiast  with  such 
delight  as  he  can  never  hope  to  communi- 
cate, or  even  to  make  seem  reasonable,  ex- 
cept to  men  of  his  own  kind. 

We  had  never  met  with  Dendroica  tigrina 
before  anywhere  about  the  mountains,  and 
I  had  no  serious  expectation  of  ever  finding 
it  here  a  second  time.  Still  "  hope  springs 
immortal ;  "  "  the  thing  that  hath  been,  it  is 
that  which  shall  be ;  "  and  one  of  my  earli- 
est concerns,  on  arriving  in  Franconia  again 
at  the  right  season  of  the  year,  was  to  re- 
visit the  well-remembered  spot  and  listen  for 
the  equally  well-remembered  sibilant  notes. 

Our  first  call  was  on  May  17.  Perhaps 
we  were  ahead  of  time  ;  at  any  rate,  we  found 
nothing.  On  the  23d  we  passed  the  place 
again,  and  heard,  somewhat  too  far  away, 
what  I  believed  with  something  like  certainty 
to  be  the  zee-zee-zee-zee  of  the  bird  we  were 
seeking;  but  the  dense  underbrush  was 
drenched  with  rain,  we  had  other  business  in 
hand,  and  we  left  the  question  unsettled.  If 
the  voice  really  was  the  Cape  May's  we 
should  doubtless  have  another  chance  with 
him.     So  I  told  my  companion  ;  and  the  re- 


IN  THE  LANDAFF  VALLEY         219 

suit  justified  the  prophecy,  which  was  based 
upou  the  bird's  behavior  of  two  years  before, 
when  all  his  activities  seemed  to  be  very  nar- 
rowly confined  —  say  within  a  radius  of  four 
or  five  rods. 

We  had  hardly  reached  the  place,  two  days 
afterward,  before  we  heard  him  singing  close 
by  us,  —  in  the  very  clump  of  firs  where  he 
had  so  many  times  shown  himself,  —  and  after 
a  minute  or  two  of  patience  we  had  him  un- 
der our  opera-glasses.  The  sight  gave  me, 
I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess,  a  thriU  of  ex- 
quisite pleasure.  It  was  something  to  think 
of  —  the  return  of  so  rare  a  bird  to  so  pre- 
cise a  spot.  With  all  the  White  Mountain 
region,  not  to  say  all  of  northern  New  Eng- 
land and  of  British  America,  before  him,  he 
had  come  back  from  the  tropics  (for  who 
could  doubt  that  he  was  indeed  the  bird  of 
two  years  ago,  or  one  of  that  bird's  pro- 
geny ?)  to  spend  another  summer  in  this  par- 
ticular bunch  of  Franconia  evergreens.  He 
had  kept  them  in  mind,  wherever  he  had 
wandered,  and,  behold,  here  he  was  again, 
singing  in  their  branches,  as  if  he  had  known 
that  I  should  be  coming  hither  to  find  him. 


220        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

The  next  day  our  course  took  us  again 
past  his  quarters,  and  he  was  still  there,  and 
still  singing.  I  knew  he  would  be.  He 
could  be  depended  on.  He  was  doing  ex- 
actly as  he  had  done  two  years  before.  You 
had  only  to  stand  stiU  in  a  certain  place  (I 
could  almost  find  it  in  the  dark,  I  think), 
and  you  would  hear  his  voice.  He  was  as 
sure  to  be  there  as  the  trees. 

That  afternoon  some  ladies  wished  to  see 
him,  and  my  companion  volunteered  his  es- 
cort. Their  experience  was  like  our  own; 
or  rather  it  was  better  than  ours.  The 
warbler  was  not  only  at  home,  but  behaved 
like  the  most  courteous  of  hosts ;  coming 
into  a  peculiarly  favorable  light,  upon  an 
uncommonly  low  perch,  and  showing  himself 
off  to  his  visitors'  perfect  satisfaction.  It 
was  bravely  done.  He  knew  what  was  due 
to  "  the  sex." 

On  the  morning  of  the  27th  I  took  my 
farewell  of  him.  He  had  been  there  for  at 
least  five  days,  and  would  doubtless  stay  for 
the  season.  May  joy  stay  with  him.  I  think 
I  have  not  betrayed  his  whereabouts  too 
nearly.     If  I  have,  and  harm  comes  of  it, 


IN  THE  LANDAFF  VALLEY         221 

may  my  curse  follow  the  man  that  shoots 
him. 

The  "  si^ectacular  duck,"  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  was  one  of  several  (three  or  more) 
that  seemed  to  be  settled  in  the  valley  of  the 
Landaff  River.  Our  first  sight  of  them  was 
on  the  20th;  two  birds,  flying  low  and  call- 
ing, but  in  so  bewildering  a  light,  and  so 
quick  in  passing,  that  we  ventured  no  guess 
as  to  their  identity.  Three  days  later,  on 
the  morning  of  the  23  d,  we  had  hardly 
turned  into  the  valley  before  we  heard  the 
same  low,  short-breathed,  grimting,  grating, 
croaking  sounds,  and,  glancing  upward,  saw 
three  ducks  steaming  up  the  course  of  the 
river.  This  time,  as  before,  the  sun  was 
against  us,  but  my  companion,  luckier  than 
I  with  his  glass,  saw  distinctly  that  they 
carried  a  white  speculum  or  wing-spot. 

We  were  still  discussing  possibilities,  sup- 
posing that  the  birds  themselves  were  clean 
gone,  when  suddenly  (we  could  never  tell 
how  it  happened)  we  saw  one  of  them  —  still 
on  the  wing  —  not  far  before  us  ;  and  even 
as  we  were  looking  at  it,  wondering  where  it 
had  come  from,  it  flew  toward  the  old  grist- 


222        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

mill  by  tlie  bridge  and  came  to  rest  on  tbe 
top  of  the  chimney  !  Here  was  queerness. 
We  leveled  our  glasses  upon  the  creature 
and  saw  that  it  was  plainly  a  merganser 
(shelldrake),  with  its  crest  feathers  project- 
ing backward  from  the  crown,  and  its  wing 
well  marked  with  white.  Its  head,  unless 
the  light  deceived  me,  was  brown.  The 
main  thing,  however,  for  the  time  being,  was 
none  of  these  details,  but  the  spectacle  of  the 
bird  itself,  in  so  strange  and  sightly  a  posi- 
tion. "  It  looks  like  the  storks  of  Europe," 
said  my  companion.  Certainly  it  looked 
like  something  other  than  an  every-day 
American  duck,  with  its  outstretched  neck 
and  its  long,  slender,  rakish  biU  showing  in 
silhouette  against  the  sky. 

Meanwhile,  it  had  put  its  head  partly  out 
of  sight  in  the  top  of  the  chimney,  as  if  it 
had  a  nest  there  and  were  feeding  its  young. 
Then  of  a  sudden  it  took  wing,  but  in  a 
minute  or  two  was  back  again,  to  our  in- 
creasing wonderment ;  and  again  it  dropped 
the  end  of  its  bill  out  of  sight  below  the  level 
of  the  topmost  bricks.  Now,  however,  I 
could  see  the  mandibles  in  motion,  as  if  it 


IN  THE  LANDAFF  VALLEY         223 

were  eating.  Probably  it  had  brought  a  fish 
up  from  the  river.  The  chimney  was  simply 
its  table.  Again,  for  no  reason  that  was 
apparent  to  us,  it  flew  away,  and  again,  after 
the  briefest  absence,  it  returned.  A  third 
time  it  vanished,  and  this  time  for  good. 
We  kept  on  our  way  up  the  valley,  talking 
of  what  we  had  seen,  but  after  every  few 
rods  I  turned  about  to  put  my  glass  upon 
the  chimney.  Evidently  that  was  the  duck's 
favorite  perch,  I  said ;  we  shoidd  find  it  there 
often.  But  whether  my  reasoning  was  faulty 
or  we  were  simply  unfortunate,  the  fact  is 
that  we  saw  it  there  no  more.  On  the  25th, 
at  a  place  two  miles  or  more  above  this 
point,  we  saw  a  duck  of  the  same  kind  —  at 
least  it  was  uttering  the  same  grating,  croak- 
ing sounds  as  it  flew ;  and  a  resident  of  the 
neighborhood,  whom  we  questioned  about  the 
matter,  told  us  that  he  had  noticed  such 
birds  ("  ducks  with  white  on  their  wings  ") 
flying  up  and  down  the  valley,  and  had  no 
doubt  that  they  summered  there.  As  to 
their  fondness  for  chimney-tops  he  knew  no- 
thing ;  nor  do  I  know  anything  beyond  the 
simple  facts  as  I  have  here  set  them  down. 


224        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

But  I  am  glad  of  the  picture  of  the  bird  that 
I  have  in  my  mind. 

Enthusiasm  is  a  good  painter  ;  it  is  not 
afraid  of  high  lights,  and  it  deals  in  fast 
colors.  And  to  us  old  Franconians,  enthu- 
siasm seems  to  be  one  of  the  institutions, 
one  of  the  native  growths,  one  of  the  special 
delectabilities,  if  you  please,  of  that  delect- 
able valley.  The  valley  of  cinnamon  roses, 
we  have  before  now  called  it ;  the  valley  of 
strawberries,  blueberries,  and  raspberries  ; 
the  valley  of  bobolinks  and  swallows;  but 
best  of  all,  perhaps,  it  is  the  valley  of  hob- 
byists. Its  atmosphere  is  heady.  We  all 
feel  it.  The  world  is  far  away.  Worldly 
successes,  yea,  dollars  and  cents  themselves, 
are  nothing,  and  less  than  nothing,  and  van- 
ity. A  new  flower,  a  new  bird,  the  hundred 
and  fiftieth  spider,  these  are  the  things  that 
count.  We  are  like  members  of  a  conven- 
ticle, or  like  the  logs  on  the  hearth.  Our 
inward  fires  are  mutually  communicative  and 
sustaining.  We  laugh  now  and  then,  it  may 
be,  at  one  another's  peculiarities.  Each  of 
us  can  see,  at  certain  moments,  that  the 
other  is  "  a  little  off,"  to  use  a  "  Francony  " 


IN   THE  LANDAFF  VALLEY         225 

phrase ;  not  quite  "  all  there,"  perhaps  ;  a 
kind  of  eighth  dreamer,  "  moving  about  in 
worlds  not  reahzed ;  "  but  at  bottom  we  are 
sympathetic  and  appreciative.  We  would 
not  have  each  other  different,  unless,  indeed, 
it  were  a  little  younger.  A  grain  of  oddity 
is  a  good  spice.  If  we  are  not  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  newest  discovery,  at  least  we  par- 
ticipate in  the  exultation  of  the  discoverer. 

"  That 's  a  good  fly,"  said  the  entomolo- 
gist. We  were  driving,  tlu-ee  of  us,  talking 
of  something  or  nothing  (we  are  never  care- 
ful which  it  is),  when  the  happy  dipteran 
blundered  into  the  carriage,  and  into  the 
very  lap  of  its  admirer.  Ten  seconds  more, 
and  it  was  under  the  anaesthetic  sj)ell  of  cy- 
anide of  potassium,  which  (so  we  are  told) 
puts  its  victims  to  sleep  as  painlessly,  per- 
haps as  blissfully,  as  chloroform.  It  was 
an  inspiration  to  see  how  instantly  the  lady 
recognized  a  "good"  one  (it  was  one  of  a 
thousand,  literally,  for  the  day  was  summer- 
like), and  how  readily,  and  with  no  waste 
of  motions,  she  made  it  her  own.  I  was  re- 
minded of  a  story. 

A  friend  of  mine,  a  truly  devout  woman, 


226        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

of  New  England  birth,  and  churcUy  withal 
(her  books  have  all  a  savor  of  piety,  though 
all  the  world  reads  them),  is  also  an  enthu- 
siastic and  widely  famous  entomological  col- 
lector. One  Sunday  she  had  gone  to  church 
and  was  on  her  knees  reciting  the  service  (or 
saying  her  prayers  —  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
remember  her  language  verbatim),  when  she 
noticed  on  the  back  of  the  pew  immediately 
in  front  of  her  a  diminutive  moth  of  some 
rare  and  desirable  species.  Instinctively  her 
hand  sought  her  pocket,  and  somehow,  with- 
out disturbing  the  congregation  or  even  her 
nearest  fellow-worshiper  (my  helpless  mas- 
culine mind  cannot  imagine  how  the  thing 
was  done)  she  found  it  and  took  from  it  a 
"poison  bottle,"  always  in  readiness  for  such 
emergencies.  Still  on  her  knees  (whether 
her  lips  still  moved  is  another  point  that  es- 
capes positive  recollection),  she  removed  the 
stopple,  placed  the  mouth  of  the  vial  over 
the  moth  (which  had  probably  imagined  it- 
self safe  in  such  ecclesiastical  surroundings), 
replaced  the  stopple  above  it,  slipped  the  bot- 
tle back  into  her  pocket,  and  resumed  (or 
kept  on  with)   her  prayers.     All  this  had 


IN  THE  LANDAFF  VALLEY         227 

taken  but  a  minute.  And  who  says  that 
she  had  done  anything  wrong  ?  Who  hints 
at  a  disagreement  between  science  and  faith  ? 
Nay,  let  us  rather  believe  with  Coleridge  — 

"  He  prayeth  best,  who  loveth  best 
All  things,  both  great  and  small,"  — 

especially  small  church-going  lepidoptera  of 
the  rarer  sorts. 

"With  zealots  like  this  about  you,  as  I  have 
intimated,  you  may  safely  speak  out.  If 
you  have  seen  an  unexpected,  long-expected 
warbler,  or  a  chimney-top  duck,  or  a  slvyward 
soaring  lark,  you  may  talk  of  it  without  fear, 
with  no  restraint  upon  your  feelings  or  your 
phrases.  Here  things  are  seen  as  they  are  ; 
truth  is  cleared  of  false  lights,  and  Wisdom 
is  justified  of  her  children.  Happy  Fran- 
conia ! 

"Has  she  not  shown  us  all  ? 
From  the  clear  space  of  ether,  to  the  small 
Breath  of  new  buds  unfolding  ?     From  the  meaning 
Of  Jove's  large  eyebrow,  to  the  tender  greening 
Of  April  meadows  ?  " 

Happy  Franconia!  "Nested  and  quiet  in 
a  valley  mild !  "  I  think  of  her  June  straw- 
berries and  her  perennial  enthusiasms,  and 
I  wish  I  were  there  now. 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ 

Mount  Agassiz  is  rather  a  hiU  than  a 
mountain  ;  there  is  no  glory  to  be  won  in 
climbing  it,  unless,  perhaps,  by  very  small 
children  and  elderly  ladies  ;  but  if  a  man  is 
in  search  of  a  soul-filling  prospect  he  may 
climb  higher  and  see  less.  The  road  to 
it,  furthermore  (I  speak  as  a  Franconian), 
is  one  of  those  that  pay  the  walker  as  he 
goes  along.  Every  rod  of  the  five  miles  is 
worth  traveling  for  its  own  sake,  especially 
on  a  bright  and  comfortable  August  morning 
such  as  the  Fates  had  this  time  sent  me.  It 
was  eight  o'clock  when  I  set  out,  and  with  a 
sandwich  in  my  pocket  I  meant  to  be  in  no 
haste.  If  invitations  to  linger  by  the  way 
were  as  many  and  as  pressing  as  I  hoped 
for,  a  mile  and  a  quarter  to  the  hour  would 
be  excellent  speed. 

Eed  crossbills  and  pine  siskins  were  call- 
ing in  the  larch   trees  near   the  house   as 


A  VISIT  TO   MOUNT  AGASSIZ       229 

I  left  the  piazza.  Tlie  siskins  have  never 
been  a  frequent  sight  with  me  in  the  sum- 
mer season,  and  finding  almost  at  once  a 
flock  in  the  grass  by  the  roadside,  feeding 
upon  seeds,  as  well  as  I  could  make  out,  and 
delightfidly  fearless,  I  stopped  for  a  few 
minutes  to  look  them  over.  Some  of  the 
number  showed  much  more  yellow  than 
others,  but  none  of  them  could  have  been 
dressed  more  strictly  in  the  fashion  if  their 
costumes  had  come  straight  from  Paris. 
Every  bird  was  in  stripes. 

Both  they  and  the  crossbills  are  what 
writers  upon  such  themes  agree  to  pro- 
nounce "  erratic  "  and  "  irregular."  Of 
most  birds  it  can  be  foretold  that  they  wiU 
be  in  certain  places  at  certain  times  ;  their 
orbits  are  known  ;  but  crossbills  and  siskins 
wander  through  space  as  the  wliim  takes 
them.  If  they  have  any  schedule  of  times 
and  seasons,  men  have  yet  to  discover  it. 
When  I  come  to  Franconia,  for  example,  I 
never  can  tell  whether  or  not  I  shall  find 
them  ;  a  piece  of  ignorance  to  be  thankfid 
for,  like  many  another.  The  less  knowledge, 
within  limits,  the  more   surprise ;  and  the 


230        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

more  surprise  —  also  witllin  limits  —  the 
more  pleasure.  At  present  I  can  hardly 
put  my  head  out  of  the  door  without  hearing 
the  wheezy  calls  of  siskins  and  the  importu- 
nate cackles  of  crossbills.  They  are  among 
the  commonest  and  most  voluble  inhabitants 
of  the  valley,  and  seem  even  commoner  and 
more  talkative  than  they  really  are  because 
they  are  so  incessantly  on  the  move. 

An  alder  flycatcher  is  calling  as  I  go  up 
the  first  hill  (he,  too,  is  very  common  and 
very  free  with  his  voice,  although,  unlike 
siskin  and  crossbill,  he  knows  where  he  be- 
longs, and  is  to  be  found  there,  and  nowhere 
else),  and  when  I  reach  the  plateau  a  sap- 
sucker  alights  near  the  foot  of  a  telegraph 
post  just  before  me ;  a  bird  in  Quakerish 
drab,  with  no  trace  of  red  upon  either  crown 
or  throat.  He  (or  she)  is  only  two  or  three 
months  old,  I  suppose,  like  more  than  half 
of  all  the  birds  now  about  us.  Not  far  be- 
yond, as  the  road  runs  into  light  woods,  with 
a  swampy  tract  by  a  brook  on  the  lower  side, 
I  hear  a  chickadee's  voice  and  look  up  to 
see  also  two  Canadian  warblers,  bits  of  pure 
loveliness,  the  first  ones  of  my  present  visit. 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ      231 

I  talk  to  them,  and  one,  his  curiosity  respon- 
sive to  mine,  comes  near  to  listen.  The 
Canadian  warbler,  I  have  long  noticed,  has 
the  bump  of  inquisitiveness  exceptionally 
well  developed. 

So  I  go  on  —  a  few  rods  of  progress  and 
a  few  minutes'  halt.  If  there  are  no  birds 
to  look  at,  there  are  always  flowers,  leaves, 
and  berries  :  goldthread  leaves,  the  prettiest 
of  the  pretty  —  it  is  a  joy  to  praise  them  ; 
and  dwarf  cornel  berries,  gorgeous  rosettes  ; 
and  long-stemmed  mountain-hoUy  berries, 
of  a  color  indescribable,  fairly  beyond  prais- 
ing ;  and  bear-plums,  the  deep-blue  berries 
of  the  clintonia.  And  while  the  eye  feasts 
upon  color  the  ear  feasts  upon  music :  a  dis- 
tant brook  babbling  downhill  among  stones, 
and  a  breath  of  air  whispering  in  a  thousand 
treetops ;  noises  that  are  really  a  superior 
kind  of  silence,  speaking  of  deeper  and 
better  things  than  our  human  speech  has 
words  for.  Quietness,  peace,  contentment, 
we  say;  but  such  vocables,  good  as  they 
are,  are  but  poor  renderings  of  this  natu- 
ral chorus  of  barely  audible  sounds.  If  you 
are  still  enough  to  hear  it  —  inwardly  still 


232        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

enough  —  as  may  once  in  a  long  while 
happen,  you  feel  things  that  tongue  of  man 
never  uttered.  Life  itself  is  less  sweet. 
Now  and  then,  as  I  listen,  I  seem  to  hear  a 
voice  saying,  "  Blessed  are  the  dead."  I 
foretaste  a  something  better  than  this  sepa- 
rate, contracted,  individual  state  of  being 
which  we  call  life,  and  to  which  in  ordinary 
moods  we  cling  so  fondly.  To  drop  back 
into  the  Universal,  to  lose  life  in  order  to 
find  it,  this  would  be  heaven ;  and  for  the 
moment,  with  tliis  musical  woodsy  silence  in 
my  ears,  I  am  almost  there.  Yet  it  must 
be  that  I  express  myself  awkwardly,  for  I 
am  never  so  much  a  lover  of  earth  as  at  such 
a  moment.  Life  is  good.  I  feel  it  so  now. 
Fair  are  the  white  birch  stems ;  fair  are  the 
gray-green  poplars.  This  is  my  third  day, 
and  my  spirit  is  getting  in  tune. 

In  the  white-pine  grove,  where  a  few 
small  birds  are  stirring  noiselessly  among 
the  upper  branches,  my  attention  is  taken 
by  clusters  of  the  ghostly,  colorless  plant 
which  men  know  as  the  Indian  pipe  (its 
real  name,  of  necessity,  is  quite  beyond  hu- 
man ken)  ;  the  flowers,  every  head  bowed, 


A  VISIT  TO   MOUNT  AGASSIZ       233 

just  breaking  through  a  bed  of  last  year's 
needles,  while  a  bumblebee,  a  capable  eco- 
nomic botanist,  visits  them  one  by  one. 
Then,  as  I  emerge  from  the  grove  on  its 
sunny  edge,  I  catch  a  sudden  pungent  odor 
of  balsam.  It  rises  from  the  dry  leaves, 
the  sunlight  having  somehow  set  it  free.  In 
the  shade  of  the  wood  nothing  of  the  kind 
was  perceptible.  The  fact  strikes  me  curi- 
ously as  one  that  I  have  often  been  half 
consciously  aware  of,  but  now  for  the  first 
time  really  notice.  On  the  instant  I  am 
taken  far  back.  It  is  a  July  noon ;  I  am 
trudging  homeward,  and  in  my  proud  boyish 
hand  is  a  basket  of  shining  black  huckle- 
berries carefully  rounded  over.  The  sense 
of  smell  is  naturally  a  sentimentalist;  or 
perhaps  the  olfactory  nerves  have  some  oc- 
cult connection  with  the  seat  of  memory. 

Here  is  one  of  my  favorite  spots  :  a  level 
grassy  field,  with  a  ruined  house  and  barn 
behind  me,  between  the  road  and  a  swampy 
patch,  and  in  front  "  all  the  mountains," 
from  Moosilauke  to  Adams.  How  many 
times  I  have  stopped  here  to  admire  them ! 
I  look  at  them  now,  and  then  fall  to  watch- 


234        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

ing  the  bluebirds  and  tbe  barn  swallows, 
that  are  here  at  borne.  A  Boston  lady 
holds  the  legal  title  to  the  property  (be  it 
said  in  her  honor  that  she  bought  it  to  save 
the  pine  wood  from  destruction),  but  the 
birds  are  its  actual  owners.  Six  bluebirds 
sit  in  a  row  on  the  wire,  while  the  swallows 
go  twittering  over  the  field.  Once  I  fancy 
that  I  hear  the  sharp  call  of  a  horned  lark ; 
but  the  note  is  not  repeated,  and  though  I 
beat  the  grass  over  I  discover  nothing.^ 

Beyond  this  level  clearing  the  road  winds 
to  the  left  and  begins  its  cHmb  to  the  height 
of  land,  whence  it  pitches  down  into  Bethle- 
hem village.  Every  stage  of  the  course  is 
familiar.  Here  a  pileated  woodpecker  once 
came  out  of  the  woods  and  disported  himself 
about  the  trunk  of  an  apple  tree  for  my  de- 
lectation —  mine  and  a  friend's  who  walked 
with  me ;  here  a  hare  sat  quiet  till  I  was 
close  upon  him,  and  then  scampered  across 

1  Four  days  afterward  (August  9)  I  found  larks  of 
the  present  season  in  the  Landaff  Valley,  where  I  had 
watched  their  parents  with  so  much  pleasure  in  May,  as 
I  have  described  in  a  previous  chapter.  These  August 
birds  were  feeding  upon  oats  in  the  road,  like  so  many 
English  sparrows. 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ       235 

the  field  with  flying  jumps  ;  here  is  a  back- 
ward valley  prospect  that  I  never  can  have 
enough  of ;  and  here,  just  over  the  wall,  I 
once  surprised  myself  by  finding  a  bunch  of 
yellow  lady's-slippers.  All  this,  and  much 
else,  I  now  live  over  again.  So  advanta- 
geous is  it  to  walk  in  one's  own  steps.  Many 
times  as  I  have  come  this  way,  I  have  never 
come  in  fairer  weather. 

And  what  is  this  ?  It  looks  like  a  hay- 
ing-bee. Eight  horses  and  two  yokes  of 
oxen,  with  several  empty  "  hay-riggings  " 
and  as  many  buggies,  stand  in  confused 
order  beside  the  road,  and  over  the  wall 
men  are  mowing,  spreading,  and  turning. 
It  is  some  widow's  grass  field,  I  imagine, 
and  her  loyal  neighbors  have  assembled  to 
harvest  the  crop.  Human  nature  is  not  so 
bad,  after  all.  So  I  am  saying,  with  the 
inexpensive  charity  natural  to  a  sentimental 
traveler,  when  I  find  myseK  near  a  group 
of  younger  men  who  are  bantering  one  of 
their  number  (I  am  behind  a  bushy  screen), 
mixing  their  talk  plentifully  with  oaths ; 
such  a  vulgar,  stupid,  witless  repetition  of 
sacred  names  —  without   one  saving   touch 


236        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

of  originality  or  picturesqueness  —  as  our 
honest,  thoroughbred,  rustic  New  Englander 
may  challenge  the  world  to  equal.  These 
can  be  no  workers  for  charity,  I  conclude ; 
and  when  I  inquire  of  a  man  who  overtakes 
me  on  the  road  (with  an  invitation  to  ride), 
he  says  :  "  Oh,  no,  that  is  Mr.  Blank's  farm, 
and  those  are  all  his  hired  men.  He  is 
about  the  richest  man  in  Bethlehem."  So 
my  pretty  idyl  vanishes  in  smoke ;  the 
smoke,  I  am  tempted  to  say,  of  burning 
brimstone.  I  have  one  consolation,  such  as 
it  is  :  the  men  are  Bethlehemites,  not  Fran- 
conians,  though  I  am  not  so  certain  that 
a  swearing  match  between  the  two  towns 
would  prove  altogether  one-sided.  It  is  no- 
thing new,  of  course,  that  beautiful  scenery 
does  not  always  refine  those  who  live  near 
it.  It  works  to  that  end,  within  its  measure, 
I  am  bound  to  believe,  for  those  who  see  it ; 
but  "  there 's  the  rub." 

Whether  men  see  it  or  not,  the  landscape 
takes  no  heed.  There  it  stretches  as  I  turn 
to  look,  spaces  of  level  green  vaUey,  with 
mountains  and  hills  round  about  —  moun- 
tains and  valleys  each  made  perfect  by  the 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ       237 

other.  I  sit  down  once  more  in  a  favoraWe 
spot,  where  every  line  of  the  picture  falls 
true,  and  drink  my  fill  of  its  loveliness, 
while  a  hermit  thrush  out  of  the  hill  woods 
yonder  blesses  my  ears  with  music.  I  have 
Emerson's  wish  —  "  health  and  a  day." 

At  liigh  noon,  as  I  had  planned,  I  came 
to  the  top  of  the  mountain.  The  ol)serva- 
tory  was  full  of  chattering  tourists,  wliile 
three  individuals  of  the  same  genus  stood  on 
the  rocks  below,  two  men  and  a  woman,  the 
men  taking  turns  in  the  use  —  or  abuse  — 
of  a  horn,  with  which  they  were  trying  to 
rouse  the  echo  (a  really  good  one,  as  I  could 
testify)  from  Mount  Cleveland  and  the 
higher  peaks  beyond.  Their  attempts  were 
mostly  failures.  Either  the  breath  wan- 
dered about  uneasily  inside  the  brazen  tube, 
moaning  like  a  soul  in  pain  —  abortive  mut- 
ter ings,  but  no  "  toot  "  —  or,  if  a  blast  now 
and  then  came  forth,  it  was  of  so  low  a  pitch 
that  the  mountains,  whose  vocal  register,  it 
appears,  is  rather  tenor  than  bass,  were  un- 
able to  return  it  effectively.  "  I  can't  get 
it  high  enough,"  one  of  the  men  said.  But 
they  had  large  endowments  of  perseverance 


238        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

—  a  virtue  tliat  runs  often  to  pernicious 
excess  —  and  seemingly  would  never  have 
given  over  their  efforts,  only  that  a  gentle- 
man's voice  from  the  observatory  finally 
called  out,  in  a  tone  of  long-suffering  polite- 
ness, "Won't  you  please  let  up  on  that 
horn,  just  for  a  little  while  ?  "  The  horn- 
blowers,  not  to  be  outdone  in  civility,  an- 
swered at  once  with  a  good-natured  affirma- 
tive, and  a  heavenly  silence,  a  silence  that 
might  be  felt,  descended  upon  our  ears. 
Neither  blower  nor  pleader  wiU  ever  know 
how  heartily  he  was  thanked  by  a  man  who 
lay  upon  the  rocks  a  little  distance  below 
the  summit,  looking  down  into  the  Franconia 
VaUey. 

The  scene  is  of  exquisite  beauty ;  beauty, 
moreover,  of  a  kind  that  I  especially  love; 
but  for  the  first  half-hour  I  looked  without 
seeing.  It  is  always  so  with  me  in  such 
places,  I  cannot  tell  why.  Formerly  I  laid 
my  disability  to  the  fact  that  the  eye  had 
first  to  satisfy  its  natural  curiosity  concern- 
ing the  details  of  a  strange  landscape ;  its 
instinctive  desire  to  orient  itself  by  attention 
to  topographical  particulars  ;  and  no  doubt 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ      239 

considerations  of  tliis  nature  may  be  sup- 
posed to  enter  more  or  less  into  the  problem. 
But  Mount  Agassiz  offered  me  nothing  to 
be  puzzled  over ;  I  felt  no  need  of  orienta- 
tion nor  any  stirrings  of  inquisitiveness. 
On  my  left  was  the  Mount  Washington 
range,  in  front  were  Lafayette  and  Moosi- 
lauke,  with  the  valley  intervening,  and  on 
the  right,  haze-covered  to-day,  rose  peak 
after  peak  of  the  Green  Mountains.  These 
things  I  knew  beforehand.  I  had  not  come 
to  this  Pisgah-top  to  study  a  lesson  in  geo- 
graphy, but  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  my  eyes. 

Still  I  must  practice  patience.  Time  — 
indispensable  Time  —  is  a  servant  that  can- 
not be  hurried,  nor  can  his  share  of  any 
work  be  done  by  the  cleverest  substitute. 
"  Beautiful !  "  I  said,  and  felt  the  word ; 
but  the  beauty  did  not  come  home  to  the 
spirit,  filling  and  satisfying  it.  I  wonder  at 
people  who  scramble  to  such  a  peak,  stare 
about  them  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and 
run  down  again  contented.  Either  the  plate 
is  preternaturally  sensitive,  or  the  picture 
cannot  have  been  taken. 

For  myself,  I  have  learned  to  wait;  and 


240        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

so  I  did  now.  A  few  birds  flitted  about  the 
summit :  two  or  three  snowbirds,  to  whom 
the  unusual  presence  of  a  man  was  plainly 
a  trouble  ("  Why  can't  he  stay  up  in  the 
observatory,  like  the  rest  of  his  kind?  ")  ;  a 
myrtle  warbler,  chirping  softly  as  he  passed ; 
a  white-throat,  whistling  now  and  then  from 
somewhere  down  the  cliffs  ;  an  alder  fly- 
catcher, caUing  quay-queer  (a  surprising 
place  this  dry  mountain-top  seemed  for  a 
lover  of  swampy  thickets)  ;  an  occasional 
barn  swallow  or  chimney  swift,  shooting  to 
and  fro  under  the  sky  ;  and  once  a  sparrow 
hawk,  welcome  for  his  rarity,  sailing  away 
from  me  down  the  valley,  showing  a  rusty 
tail. 

By  and  by,  seeing  that  the  crowd  had 
gone,  1  clambered  up  the  rocks,  eating  blue- 
berries by  the  way,  and  mounted  the  stairs 
to  the  observatory,  where  the  keeper  of  the 
place  was  talking  with  two  men  (a  musician 
and  a  commercial  traveler,  if  my  practice 
as  an  "  observer "  counted  for  anything), 
who  had  lingered  to  survey  the  panorama. 
The  conversation  turned  upon  the  usual 
topics,  especially   the   Mount   Washington 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ      241 

Eailway.  Four  or  five  trains  were  descend- 
ing the  track,  one  close  behind  the  other, 
and  it  became  a  matter  of  absorbing  interest 
to  make  them  out  through  the  small  tele- 
scope and  a  field  glass.  Why  be  at  the 
trouble  to  climb  so  high,  at  the  cost  of  so 
much  wind,  unless  you  do  your  best  to  take 
in  whatever  is  visible?  "Yes,  I  can  see 
one  —  two  —  three  —  Oh,  yes,  there  's  the 
fourth,  just  leaving  the  summit."  So  the 
talk  ran  on,  with  minor  variations  which 
may  easily  be  imagined.  One  important 
question  related  to  the  name  of  a  certain 
small  sheet  of  water  ;  another  to  a  road  that 
curved  invitingly  over  a  grassy  hilltop ;  an- 
other to  the  exact  whereabouts  of  a  rich 
man's  fine  estate  (questions  about  rich  men 
are  always  pertinent),  the  red  roofs  of  which 
could  be  found  by  searching  for  them. 

I  took  my  full  share  of  the  discussion, 
but  half  an  hour  of  it  sufficed,  and  I  went 
back  again  to  commune  with  myself  upon 
the  rocks.  The  sunshine  was  warm,  but  the 
breeze  tempered  it  till  I  found  it  good. 
And  the  familiar  scene  was  lovelier  than 
ever,  I  began  to  think.     Here  at  my  feet 


242        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

stood  the  little  house,  down  upon  which  I 
had  looked  with  such  rememberable  pleasure 
on  my  first  visit  to  Agassiz,  I  know  not  how 
many  years  ago.  Then  a  man  was  cutting 
wood  before  the  door.  Now  there  is  nobody 
to  be  seen  ;  but  the  place  must  still  be  in- 
habited, for  I  hear  the  tinkle  of  a  cowbell 
somewhere  in  the  woods,  and  a  horse  is 
pasturing  nearer  by.  Only  three  or  four 
other  houses  are  in  sight  —  not  reckoning 
the  big  hotel  and  a  few  far-away  roofs  in 
Franconia  —  and  very  inviting  they  look, 
neatly  painted,  with  smooth,  level  fields 
about  them.  It  is  my  own  elevation  that 
levels  the  fields,  I  am  quite  aware  (when  I 
stop  to  think  of  it),  as  it  is  distance  that 
softens  the  contours  of  the  mountains,  and 
the  lapse  of  time  that  smooths  the  rough 
places  out  of  past  years ;  but  for  the  hour 
I  take  things  as  the  eye  sees  them.  We 
come  to  these  visionary  altitudes,  not  to  look 
at  realities  but  at  pictures.  Distance  is  a 
famous  hand  with  the  brush.  To  omit  de- 
tails and  to  fill  the  canvas  with  atmosphere, 
these  are  the  secrets  of  his  art.  A  comfort- 
able thing  it  is  to  lie  here  at  my  ease  and 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ      243 

yield  myself  to  the  great  painter's  enchant- 
ments. 

My  eye  wanders  over  the  landscape,  but 
not  uneasily ;  nay,  it  can  hardly  be  said  to 
wander  at  aU ;  it  rests  here  and  there,  not 
trying  to  see,  but  seeing.  Now  it  is  upon 
the  road,  spaces  of  which  show  at  intervals, 
while  I  imagine  the  rest  —  a  sentimental 
journey ;  now  upon  a  far-off  grassy  clearing 
among  woods  (Mears's  or  Chase's),  homely 
enough,  and  lonely  enough  —  and  familiar 
enough  —  to  fit  the  mood  of  the  hour  ;  now 
upon  the  distant  level  reaches  of  the  Landaff 
Valley.  But  the  beauty  of  the  scene  is  not 
so  much  in  this  or  that  as  in  aU  together. 
I  say  now,  as  I  said  twenty  years  ago, 
"  This  is  the  kind  of  prospect  for  me :"  a 
broken  vaUey,  fields  and  woods  intermin- 
gled, with  mountains  circumscribing  it  all ; 
a  splendid  panorama  seen  from  above,  but 
not  from  too  far  above  ;  from  a  hill,  that  is 
to  say,  rather  than  from  a  mountain. 

An  hour  of  this  luxury  and  I  return  to 
the  tower,  where  the  musician  and  the 
keeper  are  stiU.  in  conference.  The  keeper, 
especially,  is  a  man  much   after   my  own 


244        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

mind.  He  knows  the  people  wlio  live  in 
tlie  three  houses  below  us,  and  speaks  of 
them  racily,  yet  in  a  tone  of  brotherly  kind- 
ness. I  call  his  attention  to  two  women 
whom  I  have  descried  in  the  nearest  pasture, 
a  bushy  place,  yellow  with  goldenrod  and 
pointed  with  young  larches  and  firs.  They 
wear  men's  wide-brimmed  straw  hats  (a 
black-and-tan  coUie  is  with  them),  and  one 
carries  a  broad  tin  dish,  which  she  holds  in 
one  hand,  while  she  picks  berries  with  the 
other.  Pretty  awkward  business,  an  old 
berry-picker  thinks. 

Yes,  the  keeper  of  the  tower  says,  they 

are  Mrs. and  Miss ;  one  lives  in 

the  first  house,  the  other  in  the  second. 
Now  they  are  leaving  the  pasture,  stopping 
once  in  a  while  to  strip  an  uncommonly  in- 
viting bush  (so  I  interpret  their  move- 
ments), and  we  follow  them  with  our  eyes. 
The  older  one,  a  portly  body,  walks  halfway 
across  a  broad  field  with  her  companion, 
seeing  her  so  far  homeward,  —  and  perhaps 
finishing  a  savory  dish  of  gossip,  —  and  then 
returns  to  her  own  house,  still  accompanied 
by  the  dog.  Scarcity  of  neighbors  conduces 
to  neighborliness. 


A  VISIT  TO  MOUNT  AGASSIZ      245 

The  men  who  live  in  such  houses,  the 
keeper  teUs  me,  are  very  wide-awake  and 
well  informed,  reading  their  weekly  news- 
paper with  thoroughness,  and  always  ready 
for  rational  talk  on  current  topics.  They 
are  not  rich,  of  course,  in  the  down-country 
sense  of  the  word,  and  see  very  little  money, 
subsisting  mainly  upon  the  produce  of  the 
farm  ;  a  matter  of  twenty-five  dollars  a  year 
may  cover  all  their  expenditures ;  but  they 
are  better  fed,  and  really  live  in  more  com- 
fort, than  a  great  part  of  the  folks  who  live 
in  cities.  I  am  glad  to  believe  it ;  and  I 
like  the  man's  way  of  standing  by  his  neigh- 
bors. In  fact,  I  think  higlily  of  him  as  a 
person  of  a  good  heart  and  no  small  dis- 
crimination ;  and  therefore  I  am  all  the 
gladder  when,  having  left  the  summit  and 
stopped  for  a  minute  in  the  shade  of  a  tree, 
I  overhear  him  say  to  the  musician,  "  That 
old  man  enjoys  himself ;  he 's  a  nice  old 
man."  "Thank  you,"  say  I,  not  aloud, 
but  with  deep  inward  sincerity ;  "  that 's 
one  of  the  best  compliments  I've  had  for 
many  a  day."  Blessings  on  this  mountain 
air,  that  makes  human  speech  unintention- 


246        FOOTING  IT  IN  FRANCONIA 

ally  audible.  An  old  man  that  enjoys  him- 
self is  pretty  near  to  my  ideal  of  respectable 
senility.  "  Thank  you,"  I  repeat ;  "  that 's 
praise,  and  faith,  I  'U  print  it."  And  so  I 
will,  pleasing  myself,  let  the  ungentle  reader 
—  if  I  have  one  —  think  what  he  may.  A 
good  name  is  more  to  brag  of  than  a  million 
of  money. 

Yes,  I  am  enjojring  myself  (why  not  ?), 
and  I  loiter  down  the  road  with  a  light 
heart  (an  old  man  should  be  used  to  going 
downhiU),  pausing  by  the  way  to  notice  a 
little  group  —  a  family  party,  it  is  reason- 
able to  guess  —  of  golden-crowned  kinglets. 
One  of  them,  the  only  one  I  see  fully,  has  a 
plain  crown,  showing  neither  black  stripes 
nor  central  orange  patch.  But  for  his  un- 
mistakable zee-zee-zee^  which  he  is  consider- 
ate enough  to  utter  while  I  am  looking  at 
him,  he  might  be  taken  for  a  ruby-crown. 
So  the  lover  of  beauty  and  the  hobbyist 
descend  the  hill  together,  keeping  step 
like  inseparable  friends.  And  so  may  it  be 
to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adder's-mofth,  149. 
Arbutus,    trailing,    57,    91, 

lo3. 
Aster  Lindleyanus,  5,  181. 
Azalea,  Lapland,  140. 

Beech-fern,  146. 
Blueberries,  alpine,  24. 
Bluebird,  123,  125,  209,  210, 

234. 
Bobolink,      97,     110,     117, 

213. 
Butterflies,  10,  28,  36,  123, 

145,  172. 

Catbird,   29,   106,  117,   189, 

191. 
Cedar-bird,  15,  187. 
Cherry,  wild  red,    79,  130, 

148,  211 ;  rum,  183. 
Chickadee,    black  -  capped, 

13,  15,  16,  22,  72,  83,  94, 

170,  191 ;  Hudsonian,  15, 

53. 
Chokeberry,  133. 
Chokecherry,  yellow,  181. 
Cicada,  54. 
Clintonia,  164,  231. 
Coltsfoot,  67. 
Cornel,  dwarf,  57,  122,  133, 

150,  163,  231. 
Creeper,  brown,  129,  138. 
Crossbill,  red,  19,  194,  228  ; 

white-winged,  19. 
Crow,  11,  97,  210. 
Cuckoo,  black-billed,  145. 

Finch,  pine,  126, 144, 170,228; 
purple,  117. 


Fleas,  32. 

Flowers,  alpine,  140. 

Flycatcher,  alder,  105,  125, 
148,  214,  230,  240  ;  crested, 
99,  125,  210,  214;  least, 
212,  213,  214  ;  olive-sided, 
101, 105, 130, 169,  212,  214  ; 
yeUow-bellied,  101,  215. 

Fox,  58. 

Goldfinch,  72,  172,  189,  191, 

211. 
Goldthread,  57,  83,  133,  150, 

231. 
Grosbeak,  rose-breasted,  86, 

117,  127. 
Grouse,  27, 101, 192, 205,  210, 

211. 

Hardback,  155. 
Hawk,  sparrow,  240. 
Hobble-bush,  13,  130. 
Houstonia,  133. 
Humming-bird,  160,  205. 
Hyla,  192. 

Indigo-bird,  159. 

Kinglet,  golden  -  crowned, 
138,  192,  246;  ruby- 
crowned,  29,  66,  72,  192. 

Kingfisher,  16. 

Lady's  -  slipper,  pink,  108, 
133;  yellow,  111,  235.   _  _ 

Lark,  meadow,  115  ;  prairie 
horned,  162,  166,  195,  217, 
234. 

Lonesome  Lake,  11. 


250 


INDEX 


Martin,  purple,  117. 
Maryland  yellow-throat,  72, 

125,  145,  189. 
Merganser,  221. 
Mountain  ash,  17. 
Mountain  hoUy,  163,  231. 

Nuthatch,  red-breasted,  17, 
121,  194;  white-breasted, 
189,  213,  216. 

Oriole,  117. 

Oven-bird,  125,  143,  216. 

Owl,  barred,  22. 

Phoebe,  191,  209. 

Raspberry,  151, 162 
Rhodora,  85,  133. 
Robin,  13,  22,  74,  117,  170, 
189,  191. 

Salix  balsamifera,  6,  41,  85, 

155. 
Sandpiper,  solitary,  89,  115, 

170. 
Sandwort,  Greenland,  25. 
Sapsucker,  68,  148,  183,  184, 

189,  215,  230. 
Shadbush,  80,  83,  91,  133, 

211. 
Shadbush,  few-flowered,  91, 

133. 
SiskiA,  pine,  126,  144,  170, 

29g 

Snowbird,  14,  15,  63,  240. 

Sparrow,  chipping,  77  ;  Eng- 
lish, 118;  field,  77,  116, 
117,  159,  189;  fox,  57; 
Lincohi's,  68,  74,  77;  sa- 
vanna, 78  ;  song,  72,  74, 
77,  117,  123,  159,  170,  189, 
191,  210  ;  swamp,  74,  172  ; 
vesper,  8,  44,  51,  116, 
117,  123,  160,  191 ;  white- 
crowned,  74,  77,  114,  194 ; 
white-throated,  13,  15,  25, 
57,  66,  74,  83,  93,  130,  148, 
160,  170,  189,  191. 


Spiders,  31. 

Spring-beauty,  88,  89. 

Swallow,  bank,  117,  bam, 
97,  117,  118,  152,  159,  234, 
240 ;  cliff,  117 ;  tree,  117. 

Swift,  134,  240. 

Tanager,  72,  101,  117,  126. 

Thorn-bush,  180. 

Thrush,  gray-cheeked,  117 ; 
hermit,  14,  21,  29,  30,  39, 
80,  113,  115,  117,  148,  159, 
165, 191,  237  ;  olive-backed 
(Swainson's),  14,  21,  22, 
101,  117,  144,  189,  193; 
water,  105 ;  Wilson's 
(veery),  101, 110,  115, 117  ; 
wood,  112,  117,  126,  127. 

Toad,  131. 

Trillium,  painted,  83,  133. 

Violet,  dog  -  tooth,  89  ; 
round-leaved,  88,  89,  130 ; 
Selkirk's,  122,  135. 

Vireo,  Philadelphia,  189, 
190 ;  red-eyed,  18,  72,  116, 
144,  159,  170,  210;  soli- 
tary, 8, 66,  68,  72, 117, 148, 
189,  191;  warbling,  120; 
yellow-throated,  115,  214. 

Warbler,  bay-breasted,  72, 
73,  87,  94 ;  Blackburnian, 
86,  87,  94,  135  ;  black-and- 
white,  104 ;  blackpoll,  72, 
142 ;  black-throated  blue, 
126 ;  black-throated  green, 

72,  189;  blue  yellow- 
backed,  127,  216 ;  Canada, 

101,  230;  Cape  May,  94, 

102,  103,  106, 107,  111,  198, 
217;    chestnut-sided,     72, 

73,  170;  magnolia,  101, 
127,  144  ;  mourning,  112, 
128  ;  myrtle,  68,  72,  143, 
144,  189,  211,  240;  Nash- 
viUe,  127,  189,  213;  Ten- 
nessee,  41,    92,   101,  102, 


INDEX 


251 


103,  105  ;  Wilson's  black- 
cap, 114. 

Woodchuck,  61,  86,  96. 

Wood  pewee,  169,  214. 

Woodpecker,  arctic  three- 
toed,     14 ;     downy,     68 ; 


golden-winged,  16,  68,  72  ; 

hairy,  41 ;  pileated,  45,  99, 

156,  1S3,  193,  234. 
Wood  sorrel,  167. 
Wren,  winter,  10,  57,  72,  90, 

117. 


Mc 


£^ 


Electrotyped  attd  prmted  by  H.  O.  Houghton  (5^^  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


I 


f  - 
4, 


